Mondrian and the Theory of Architecture

Author(s): Yve-Alain Bois

Source: Assemblage, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 102-130
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3171039 .
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Yve-Alain
Mondrian

of

Yve-AlainBoisis AssociateProfessor
of
ArtHistoryat the JohnsHopkinsUniversityand a foundingeditorof Macula.

1 (frontispiece). Collective
letter sent to Mondrian by
the participantsof a ClIAM
meeting in Amsterdam

Bois

and

the

Theory

Architecture

When Mondrian arrivedin New York, in October 1940,

he was preceded by a reputationas a designer ratherthan
as a painter. The few paintings that had been exhibited
during the thirties at the Gallery of Living Art (the private
museum of A. E. Gallatin) or at the Museum of Modern
Art were not at first recognized as easel paintings, but
ratherwere seen as hypothetical models that needed to be
applied. "When I first looked at Mondrian'spaintings,"
wrote Charmion von Wiegand, "I found them bare but
beautifully proportioneddesigns. I could see their use for
industry,for typography,for decoration, but I could not
understandwhy he still considered himself a painter."'The
young artistand critic was quick to modify her judgment
and to discover the full pictorial richness of Mondrian's
work. But the importantpoint here is that this "utilitarian"
interpretationof neoplasticistpainting has for quite some
time largely dominated the critical discourse. It is, first of
all, the argument of its detractors:"strictlydecorativepainting," wrote T6riade;2a kind of painting "barelygood
enough to serve as bathroom tiling for its patron,"said
ironically another fashionable critic after the first public
appearanceof Mondrian'spaintings in Paris.3But this interpretationrapidlybecame the reasoningof Mondrian's
advocatesas well. No doubt to convince, to rally the votes
of the Beotians, almost every article that has appearedon
the artist, and this until recently (it seems that he is now
beginning to be seen as essentially a painter), has insisted
on the supposed influence that Mondrian has had on our
environment. Until the 1970s, no historian of modern ar-

103

LES

D'ARCHITECTURE
INTERNATIONAUX
CONGRES
FUR NEUES
KONGRESSE
INTERNATIONALE

MODERNE
BAUEN

11/6/ ,5
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Jher Piet,Mondriaan,
R4units dans une assemblee des del4guees
des Congres
internationaux
moderne a Amsterdam,
d'architecture
nous pensons a vous, et nous vous envoyons nos
salutations
cordiales,
sincerem.-Mnt

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assemblage 4

-i

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I.

163 (305) Mi~isvan dc Rohe: Project for a brick countryv house, plan,
1922

162 (52) Doesburg: Russian

dance,1918 (not in exhibition) ;
(f. Picasso, fig. 27

16

(20)

Gro
Cor is:

rs

us. I)csau, 19"25-26: I),M

c'f.

2. Page from Alfred Barr's

Cubismand AbstractArt, 1936.
Barrcompares not only van
Doesburg'sRhythmof a Russian Dance to Mies's project for
a brickcountry home, but also
Gropius'sprofessor's house at
Dessau to van Doesburg's Composition VIII(The Cow) of 1917.

lfi

I cr right
igp.11.t11.o

chitecture failed to cite him, at one moment or another, as

a kind of precursor- the exception being ReynerBanham, whose evaluation of Mondrian'sworktook on a polemical value in its own time - as if architecturehad
waited for neoplasticismto glorifyasymmetryor horizontal/
vertical rhythm.4Such a position, on the one hand,
neglects to take into account the work of FrankLloyd
Wright, who from the end of the last centuryplayed very
subtly with symmetryand dissymmetry(and who had himself a notable influence on certain De Stijl architects).
And, on the other hand, it ignores that architecture,tending from the 1880s towarda "moral"exergue of its anatomy (the word is Berlage's),quite naturallybegan to exalt
the major opposition of weight and support:an opposition
that, thanksto technical developmentsand the appearance
of new materials(steel, reinforcedcement) was manifested
more than ever in the expression"H/V,"accordingto the
sibylline phrase of Theo van Doesburg, that is to say, by
the relationship"horizontal/vertical."'
Nevertheless, it should not be assumed that it is in itself
incongruousto examine the possible relationsbetween
Mondrian'sart and theory with respectto architecture.De
Stijl, after all, was a movement that, with van Doesburgas
one of its pillars, brought paintersand architectstogether
in the hope of attaining a collective creation. Nor should
one ignore that it was the architectswho were especially
appreciativeof Mondrian'sart, forming de facto the most
importantsocial group of his admirers,as well as his most
faithful collectors (to name only a few, J. J. P. Oud, Philip
Johnson, Sir Leslie Martin, Charles Karsten,Th. K. van
Lohuizen, Cornelis van Eesteren, Alfred Roth, Mart
Stam, PierreChareau, Werner Moser, and Benjamin Merkelbach, each of whom possessedat least one of the painter's worksduring his lifetime). It is simply necessaryto note
that the search for Mondrianesque"motifs"in such and
such a skyscraperprofile, in such and such a patternof
openings in the facade of a contemporarybuilding, is
much less pertinentthan is generallybelieved. To take one
example that does not directly concern Mondrianbut another De Stijl painter:the comparisonthat has been made
a thousand times between the plan of a Country House by
Mies van der Rohe, 1923, and the Rhythmof a Russian
Dance, 1918, by van Doesburg.6Strikingthough it is, this
104

Bois

comparisonseems essentiallysuspect. It is typical of a certain formalistideology of design - the principalshaperof

which was without doubt the Bauhaus, although unwillingly - where everythingis thought to be contained in
everythingelse and materialdifferencesare overlookedin
favor of morphologicalanalogies. A luxury cigarette
lighter, five centimetershigh, can be comparedto a skyscraper,eighty stories high, a plan of a villa to an easel
painting:the argument of similitude is held to prove the
case.

3. GerritRietveld, Schr6der
house, Utrecht, 1924. The first
of a row of brick houses,
reflecting then in a pond as
a bridge between city and
countryscape,it functions as a
gate to the town.

Curiously enough, it was Gerrit Rietveld, the architect

most comparableto Mondrian (and how can one not, in
effect, be struckby the formal resemblancebetween the
polychrome facades of the Schr6derHouse and the neoplasticistworksof the Dutch painter?),who clearlywarned
againstthis abuse of analogical relationships.Having clarified that he had, in fact, never met Mondrian- an acknowledgementthat signifies nothing in itself, save for
indicatingthe tenuous nature of the personalrelationships
among the most importantmembers of De Stijl7- Rietveld conceded that the painter had a "direct"influence on
architecture,above all on that of the interior,"including,"
he wrote, "all the ignominies, now fortunatelyconcluded,
perpetratedin the realm of lead-glazing."8But he also
added, "I see in every direct applicationof the compositions of Mondrian to architecturethe danger of a rapid
shift to decorativeprettiness,and this preciselyby virtue of
the very analyticalbeginnings of De Stijl." Even though
he did not deny the existence of a certain superficialinfluence of Mondrian on architecture,Rietveld refusedto
grantthe least importanceto these "applications."Mondrian's true influence in this domain could not, he stressed,
be analyzed without taking into account the entire theoretical work of De Stijl at its inception, founded on the
analytical separationof the differentgenres of plastic art
(painting, sculpture, architecture)- a preliminaryseparation that, accordingto the members of the movement,
would lead by its very rigorto the invention of a common
denominatorfor all the arts. "At the epoch of De Stijl,"
wrote Rietveld, "one did not speak of a translationof pictorial experience into architecture;on the contrary,one
spoke of the separationof space, color, and form as the
point of departurefor the analysis."9That said, the misun105

assemblage 4

derstandingdenounced by Rietveld, still current enough

today, would be of little importance in regardto the work
of Mondrian if the painter himself was not in some way
the first to have generated it, engendering in his theory
many more contradictionson the question of the relationships between painting and architecturethan on any other
matter.
In the autobiographypublished in the catalogue of his first
one-man exhibition in New York in 1942, Mondrian
wrote: "Modernarchitectureand industryrespondedto our
influence, but painting and sculpture were little affected."'1
The partisansof a "utilitarian"interpretationof Mondrian's
work can certainly use this declarationin supportof their
thesis, but this would ignore the context in which the
phrase was uttered. Mondrian was indeed defending himself, but also criticizing what he saw as the regressivecharacter of contemporarypictorial and sculpturalproduction.
Mondrian'stext immediately continues: "They seemed to
fear that Neo-Plasticism might lead to 'decoration.'Actually, there was no reason for this fear in pure plastic art
any more than in any other art expression. All art becomes
'decoration'when depth of expressionis lacking."" It was
to fight the accusation of decorationthat Mondrian appealed to architectureand industry,which had not failed,
he stated, while obeying their own requirements,to follow
developments "parallelif not equal" to neoplasticism. His
great disdain for applied arts had not diminished since
1930, when he had respondedto the unfavorablejudgment
of Tdriade (on the "strictlydecorative"nature of neoplasticism): "Indeedperhapsno tendency has been more
wrongly applied, more vulgarizedin advertisements,in
decoration, in architecture, etc."'2
"While Neo-Plasticism now has its own intrinsic value, as
painting and sculpture, it may be consideredas a preparation for a future architecture,"Mondrian continued in his
autobiography.13 Here again, the "utilitarians"seem to
have the right to be pleased;and nevertheless, here again,
despite the ambiguous nature of Mondrian'sformulation(a
"preparation"can in fact be taken for a model), they would
be wrong. For Mondrian did not in any way imply the
simple formal application of the compositional method of
painting to architecture. What Mondrian calls "neoplasti-

cism" is a group of principlesthat go beyond any artistic

practice in particular:a form of painting may be its realization in painting, a hypotheticalbuilding its realizationin
architecture;but these visible manifestationsare by nature
imperfectand always perfectible, while the principlesare
in themselves "intangible"(this is a leitmotiv of his
writings).As early as 1922, Mondrian noted that the
realizationof neoplasticismin architecturewas almost
impossible, given existing economic and technical conditions,14and declared openly, "Whatwas achieved in art
must for the presentbe limited to art. Our externalenvironment cannot yet be realized as the pure plastic expression of harmony."'5Certainlythis text precedesby twenty
years the American autobiography,but everythingsupports
the indication that Mondrian had not changed his mind
on this point. Until the end of his life, Mondrianthought
of the realizationof neoplasticismin architectureas
something that would occur in the future. While he
often exhibited his admirationfor certain contemporary
architecturalcreations, he accepted none without qualification, not even those of Rietveld, on which he was singularly silent. His judgmentson contemporaryarchitecture
were always comparativeand relative. The work of Le Corbusier, for example, was to Mondrian"alreadybeautiful
. . in comparisonwith other works . . . , alreadyvery
great in this epoch, but it is not the apogee of culture!":
his art was "stilltoo naturalistic."16 Or again, if he wrote to
Oud, at the very beginning of their friendship,that he
greatlyadmired his Projectfor a Factoryof 1919, it was
only to add: "it is the best that I have seen of its kind.""7
This "best"stands out, but it was far from implying perfection. In brief, no architecturalrealizationever existed (nor
could have existed)that representedfor Mondrianan absolute example of that "purearchitecture"of which he
dreamed.
It is appropriateto analyze, in the remainderof this essay,
the many reasons, stemming from the contradictionsin
Mondrian'stheory, why this was so. The first resides, as
we have seen, in the way in which Mondrianthinks of
(refusesand sometimes admits)the possibilityof a "utilization" of the principles of neoplasticismin architecture- a
formulationthat must be examined more closely. The second, and more essential, concerns the very notion, found
106

Bois

in his writings, of utility in architectureand, beyond this,

his struggleagainstthe functionalistconception of modern
architecture.The third, more serious still, and directly
linked to Mondrian'sown architecturalexperiments,
concerns his blindness, his absolute refusalof the spatial
givens of architecture.
4. J. J. P. Oud, project for a
factory, Purmerend,1919

AgainstApplied Neoplasticism
Mondrian, as we have said, refusedthe idea of applied arts
as well as of "decoration":"The decorativeartsdisappearin

Neo-Plasticism,
justas the appliedarts."'8Or again,"Neo-

Plasticismseemingly lends itself to decoration(throughits

planarity)but actually the "decorative"has no place in the
Neo-Plastic conception."'9Mondrian'ssole contributionto
the domain of the "appliedarts"(if we except the cubist
plate he conceived before the advent of neoplasticismin
1914)20 was indeed a burden for him: the layout for the
cover of the unpublished Polish translationof his Bauhaus
book.21 And we will see that Mondrian'sinteriorscertainly
cannot be classified in the categoryof decoration- those,
for example, of his own studio, his projectfor a Salon
pour Madame B . . . , or his model for a theatrical
"decor."

In orderbetterto understandMondrian'sposition against

the application of one art to another, and for the application, in each art, of the principlesof neoplasticism(a position summarized in a letter to Alfred Roth, "It should not
be believed that we want to make 'art'in architecture"),22
we should doubtless return, as Rietveld indicated, to the
very beginnings of De Stijl, when a true analytictheory of
the differentarts was formulatedby Mondrian, Theo van
Doesburg, and Bart van der Leck.
of plastic
Althoughthe contentof all artsis one, the possibilities
exteriorization
aredifferentforeachart. Eachartdiscoversthese
withinits own domainand mustremainlimitedby
possibilities
its bounds.Eachartpossessesits own meansof expression:
the
of its plasticmeanshasto be discoveredindepentransformation
dentlyby each artand mustremainlimitedby its ownbounds.
of one artcannotbe judgedaccording
Thereforethe potentialities
to the potentialities
of another,but mustbe consideredindependentlyandonly withregardto the artconcerned.23
Such is Mondrian'squotation, in 1920, of a fragmentfrom
107

assemblage 4

the very first text that he had published in De Stijl, in its

inaugural issue.24Even though in this article he insisted
on the specificity of each art, Mondrian did not accord the
same status to all: painting was "the freest art";it alone
could give rise to "the most consequential expressionof
pure relations."His claim for specificitywas thus encumbered from the outset by an evident dissymmetry.Now in
the same issue of De Still, Bart van der Leck published an
article, still more clearly articulated,on the relationsbetween painting and architecture.25In substance, van der
Leck proposedthat each artistshould occupy himself with
his own work so that no art would impinge on the prerogatives of another (on this pont evidently, at the beginning at
least, the theory of the members of De Stijl sharesnothing
with an apology for a Gesamtkunstwerk).Let each art, van
der Leck stated, search on its own account for what constitutes its specific "essence."And van der Leck enumerated
the differences between painting and architecture:flatness/
volume; openness / closure; color / absence of color; extension / limitation; plastic equilibrium / constructiveequilibrium. But if van der Leck claimed with insistence this
separationof roles, it was not in order violently to oppose
painting and architectureto each other, ratherthe contrary.In a second text on the same problem, published
four months later in De Still, van der Leck offereda more
precise explanation:"It is only when the means of expression of each art are applied in all their purity, that is to
say, according to the characteristicsof its nature and end,
so that each art attains its own essence as an autonomous
entity, it is only at this moment that an interlinking,a
dovetailing, will become possible, which will demonstrate
the unity of the differentarts.'"26And why will this occur,
according to van der Leck? Because painting and architecture have a fundamental element in common, flatness, the
"degreezero of their art"(in wall or picture plane). In fact,
it is because it has become planar (pictorialflatnessis the
watchwordof all the paintersof De Stijl) that painting "has
arrivedtoday at the point where it may be admittedto a
collaborationwith architecture.This has happened because
its means of expressionhave been purified. The description
of time and space by the means of perspectivehas been
abandoned:it is henceforth up to the flat plane to transmit
the continuity of space. . . . Painting is today architectural

because in itself and by its own means it servesthe same

concept - the space and the plane - as architecture,and
thus expresses'the same thing' but in a differentway.'"27
The point of departurewas the same for van Doesburg in
the first major text that he published on architecture,in
November 1918. For him the division of labor was absolutely necessary:"Each art, architecture,painting, or
sculpture, requiresthe whole man."28 He repeatedthe
same recriminationsas had van der Leck againstthose
architectswho would attempteverything.29Van Doesburg
would reiteratemany times this expressdemand for a division of labor, even though evidently, increasinglyinterested
in architecture,he no longer obeyed it himself. ("Manya
misunderstandingor mistakehas resultedwhen painterand
architectdid not sufficientlyrespectone another'sfield.
On the one hand, architectsrestrictedpainters;on the
other hand, they presentedthem with too much freedom.")30But van Doesburg'sinauguraltext, in place of
stressingthe planar charactercommon to the two arts,
insisted on one of the differencesbetween painting and
architecturethat van der Leck had articulatedwithout
elaboration:"Architecturejoins together, binds - painting
loosens, unbinds." In this text of 1918, van Doesburg formulated the theory that he was to hold, with some variations, until the end of his life: "Architectureprovidesa
constructed, closed, plastic form, by virtue of its balanced
relationships.Painting is contrastedin relation to
architecture."31
In this context Mondrianelaboratedhis firstwritingson
the question. His insistence on the specificityof the arts,
his "each specialtydemands complete attention and
study,"32directly echoed the "whole man" called for by van
Doesburg. In the first text where he spoke to some extent
about architecture,"Het bepaaldeen het onbepaalde,"33
published in December 1918, Mondrian in fact took up a
number of ideas set forth by van der Leck and van Doesburg, ideas that might be summarizedin three postulates:
(1) Painting, having evolved, is today readyto come to
terms with architecture(a principalidea of van der Leck's);
(2) but it is not, for this, any more an accessoryof architecture, because it is not constructive(Mondriancited van
der Leck'stext in a note); and (3) architecturealwayspre108

Bois

supposes closure and limitation (Mondriancited this time

van Doesburg'stext). Now Mondrian articulatedeach of
these theses in a different manner than had van der Leck
or van Doesburg, or rather,he correctedeach by additions.
To the first statement, Mondrian added the idea that architecture has always "surpassed"the neighboringarts by its
very nature, even if in an unconscious way. Architecture,
he would write later, will have the shortestpart of the
route to cover. This theme of architecturein the forefront
was often to return in Mondrian'swriting, until he corrected it by a strangeevolutionist dialectic: preciselybecause architectureis too close to "purevision"- that is to
say, because it expressesitself through the relation "horizontal/vertical"- architecturecannot attain it fully. But
this dialectical "correction"was alreadypresent in embryo
in "Het bepaalde en het onbepaalde":only painting has led
to the expressionof "purerelationships";in other words,
the "advance"of architectureserves and will serve in the
future for nothing. All the subsequenttexts of Mondrian
(but also those of van Doesburg)would insist on this inaugural role of painting. 4
To the second of these theses Mondrian first added the
remark,repeatedseveral times afterwards,that architecture,
precisely because it is "constructive"is not free (the weight
of materialshinders it). Mondrian opposed it to painting,
no longer constructivebut "constructing"[construeerende].
But this opposition opens up an entirely differentside of
his theory, revealingwhat differentiatesMondrian from
van Doesburg and also, more radically,what distanceshim
from all modern architects:architecture,he stated, is condemned to volume, its "corporeality"is its curse, its adverse destiny. The only solution is for it to be "as planaras
possible." It could not, in any event, avoid perspectiveor
abandon all "naturalism.""35
The third thesis of "Het bepaalde en het onbepaalde"was
linked to the entire metaphysicsof neoplasticism:by being
closed in its essence (because it always remains a shelter),
the building is opposed to space, to the "continuityof
space"mentioned by van der Leck; it remains a thing
apart. By contrast, the aim of neoplasticismin all its domains was an absolute "neutralization"of all opposition, a
dissolution of every particularthing into the whole.

From this readjustmentof the ideas of van Doesburg and

van der Leck stem two preoccupationsessential to the theoretical work of Mondrian:the interesthe accordedto the
interior(and this interest is not simply theoretical);and the
myth, increasinglyinsistent in his writings, of a dissolution
of art in life. We will see that these two preoccupationsare
linked.
To end with the question of "application,"let us note that
Mondrian always declared himself a subscriberto the notion of the specificity of the arts, even going so far as to
praise the new architecturebecause it "excludespainting
and sculpture, for it is now widely admitted that if each
one did not perfect itself separately,all would degenerate
into decorativeor applied art."'36Mondrian seemed also to
hold to the idea of the common denominatorof architecture and painting (the surface)as it had been formulated
by van der Leck:this common denominator (the planar)
could permit, should the occasion arise, the union of these
two plastic domains, because it was concerned not with a
superficialapplication but with a common root of the two
arts.
We must neverthelessrecognize that Mondrian- like van
Doesburg - as I have alreadyalluded to, did not resistthe
temptation to establish a hierarchyof the arts. At the very
end of his article "De Realiseeringvan het Neo-Plasticisme," he added, in effect, that he had judged architecture from the point of view of painting, concluding thus:
"The Neo-Plastic aesthetic originatedin painting, but once
formulated, the concept is valid for all the arts."37This
affirmation, a true coup de force, is, however, in contradiction with any idea of specificity, that is to say, with the
point of departureof the De Stijl group. It should be noted
that almost all the members of De Stijl followed the same
development: first inclined towardcollaboration, by virtue
of a common denominator among their practices, the architects and the paintersdecided little by little to work
alone, but precisely and paradoxicallybecause they could
not respectthe "specificity"of their domain, because they
could not be preventedfrom trespassingon that of their
neighbor. Thus it was in 1922 that Mondrian seemed to
abandon, whateverhe said to the contrary,any idea of collaboration, declaring that "the architect, the sculptor, and
109

assemblage 4

the painter find their essential identity in collaborationor

are all united in a single person,"38the last part of the
statement clearly contradictingthe principle of the division
of labor to which he had earlier subscribed.This contradiction stemmed without any doubt from the sense of deception provokedin Mondrian by the architectureof his
time, as manifested, for example, in the attitudeof Oud
toward neoplasticism:"Today,because the architect is not
an artist, he is unable to create the new beauty,"he wrote
in 1925.39We must now analyze the history of this
deception.

Against Functionalism in Architecture

When Mondrian began to assemble his scatteredideas on
architecture, in the celebrated"trialogue,"as he called it,
"Natuurlijkeen abstracterealiteit"[Naturalrealityand abstractreality], he attributeda kind of unconscious scouring
force to practical necessityin ordinaryarchitecture:"We
see pure beauty arising of its own accord in architectural
structuresbuilt for utility and from necessity:in housing
complexes, factories, warehouses, etc. But as soon as 'luxury' enters, one begins to think of 'art,' and pure beauty is
compromised."40 A few months before Le Corbusierwas to
invent the "good savage"of modern architecturein his articles for L'Esprit Nouveau, Mondrian said of the engineer
that he was (without knowing it) in advance of the artist.
"So long as we are incapable of conscious aesthetic plastic
expression, it is better to devote our attention to utility,"he
wrote in "Realiteit."'41And Mondrian acclaimed objects of
necessity, exactly as Le Corbusierwould do: "A simple
drinkingcup is beautiful and so is an automobile or an
airplane.'"42There is, of course, nothing very original in
this formulation;it is a commonplace of the epoch. Writing shortly after Mondrian, in the same terms, and drawing his supportdirectly from the texts of Le Corbusier,van
Doesburg advanced his plea on behalf of a "mechanical"
aesthetic and refuted the "Gothic"argumentsof Berlage.43
More interestingis to see how Mondrian little by little detached himself from this "functionalist"vision. The first
text that he devoted exclusively to architecture,the twopart "De Realiseeringvan het Neo-Plasticisme,"dated from
1922. Dedicated to the question of the "function"of archi-

tecture, of its practicalnecessities and technical problems,

the article grew directly out of a long epistolarydebate between the artistand J. J. P. Oud (then in the processof
breakingwith van Doesburg because of the latter'sintrusions into the domain of architecture).Elsewhere Mondrian thanked his friend for having helped him, through
his letters, to reflect on architecture.44This correspondence
must be examined in detail, because in it is revealedthe
entire genesis of Mondrian'sarchitecturaltheory.
Everythingbegan, in fact, with a lecture by Oud entitled
"Overde Toekomste Bouwkunsten hare Mogelijkheden,"
given in February1921 and published the following June.
Oud's text, immediately translatedinto German and two
years later into French, under the title "L'Architecturede
demain et ses possibilit6sarchitectoniques,"was to gain
considerableattention.45It articulated,doubtlessfor the
firsttime, what was to become the credoof the architects
belonging to what is now called the InternationalStyle. If
most of Oud's theses seem today extremelybanal, it is precisely because they were immediately taken up by every
architect of the Modern Movement, and because, above
all, his text anticipatedby a number of yearsthe multiplication of manuals and manifestoesproducedby the architects of the 1920s. Oud denounced the anachronismof
contemporaryarchitecturewith regardto its technical possibilities (while, by contrast, the engineers knew how to
exploit the new materialssuch as glass or metal). He decried the leprosy of ornament, since its origins the veritable
sign of the decadence of architecture.And he articulated
the need for a transparentarchitecture,in the double sense
that architectureshould no longer seek to hide its construction, "beautifulin itself," and that, utilizing glass in
wide, glazed bays, it should open itself to the light. Nothing is more common to the historianof this period than
these maxims; in any event, Oud innovatedless in the
ideas themselves than in their conjugation. But what is less
known, and what seems to have escaped even Mondrian,
is the similarityof language between this text by Oud and
the first articlesby the painter. (Oud even speaksof the
"tragic,"a principal concept of neoplasticisttheory.)The
architectwas visibly a great readerof Mondrianduring this
period;whence Mondrian'sown astonishmentin discovering that Oud did not mention neoplasticismin his lecture.
110

Bois

Instead, taking up an idea that had been dear to him from

1916, Oud made of cubism one of the sources of the architecture of the future.46Even though he characterizedit
as "the tragic image of an epoch in transition,"Oud wrote
that cubism led to an art that was "essentiallypictorial"a characterizationfollowed by a descriptionthat evoked
neoplasticismmore than it did cubism. Cubism, he
avowed, was an art whose works"lose their right to exist
as paintingsbut gain a considerableinterestin anticipating the role that color will play in the architectureof
tomorrow. "47

5. J. J. P. Oud, Spangen VIII,

Rotterdam, 1921. Oud's refusal
of his coloristicdesign for this
housing complex prompted van
Doesburg to break with the
architect.

"Allow me one remark,"wrote Mondrian to the architect,

"you write very prudentlyof a new art, purer, that is in the
process of developing out of cubism. Would it not have
been better to clearly define neoplasticismas the principle
of all artisticexpression(at this epoch). . . . You would
have even been able to remain outside the argumentby
referringsimply to my brochure, where I have transferred
the principlesof N.P. to architecture."48
Mondrian, we
of
the
that
a
still
note,
transferral
principlesof
thought
architecture
was
to
possible. A little later in
neoplasticism
the correspondence,he would say he did not understand
that Oud did not accept an application of these principles
to Bouwkunst.49 He still, some months later, even dreamed
of being able to put these principles into practicehimself:
"Even as you like my painting (which is a close enough
reflection of neoplasticismin painting), so, I hope, you
would like a building of mine - if only I could realize
it."750But he was graduallyto abandon such fantasiesof
immediate application, and his correspondencewith Oud
must have counted for something in this evolution. Whatever the case, the architecthad doubtlessrespondedto
Mondrian'sreproacheswith an initial justificationof the
kind, "neoplasticismis impossible in architecturefor practical reasons."Mondrian announced to Oud, indeed with
a certain jubilation, that he seemed to have found the theoretical solution for their difference:
Afterhavingreadyourletter,I suddenlyunderstood
wherethe
difficultywas.We can be pureonly if we see architecture
anewas art[kunst].It is onlyas art thatit can fully
[bouwkunst]
to
the
aestheticdemandsof neoplasticism.
Architecture,
respond
andcoloring'thatmustbe accomor, aboveall, the 'construction
plishedforthatwhichis alreadyexistant,can be purifiedby the
111

assemblage 4

N.P. but scarcelymore.Certainlynot attainbeauty.The Neo-Pl.

demandstoo much, and thisis not yetpossiblebecausemen are
not yet ready.Yourlecturewasthereforeverygood, in thissense,
concerningconstruction[hetbouwen],and in generalyou would
be rightto continueworkingin thisway.Let us call this, for
and the other'Bouwkunst'
(thisdistincexample,'Architectuur'
tion is possiblebetweenus, but I thinkthatthe twohavethe
samemeaning,thus, officially,it is not possible).. . . The solution is to be foundin thisdistinctionthatI make,thiseliminates
as kunst,I alreadyhada
the difficulty.As forthe bouwkunst
in
De
I
it
and
described
Still and in the brochure.
solution,
[Mondrian's
emphasis]51
6. Theo van Doesburg, photomontage of various views of
the model for a Maison d'artiste he realized and exhibited
with Cornelisvan Eesteren at
the Galerie de "L'EffortModerne," 1923

GALERIE
19,

Rue

"L'EFFORT
LtONCE
de La

MODERNE"

ROSENBEItG
Baume
Paris

(vxxi~)

rez-de-chaussde

Les Architectesdu Groupe"de Styl"

(HOLLuNDE)
PROJETS ET MAQUETTESPAR
THQO VANDOESBURG,

W. VANLEUSDEN,

C. VANEESTEREN, HUSZAR
J-J. P. OUD, G. RIETVELD,

MIES VAN DER ROHE,

Exposes du 15 Octobre au 15 Novembre 1923
de 10 h. &12 h. et de 14 h.- 17 h. 30
(dimanches et fdtes exceptis)

7. Invitationfor De Stijl's
architecturalshow in Paris,
1923

WILS.

INVITATION

This is an importantletter, despite its obscurities,because

it enunciated for the first time a radicaldistinctionbetween
a "practical,""useful"architecture(construction,het bouwen, architectuur)and an experimentalarchitecture
(bouwkunst).This distinction, which Mondrian did not yet
dare to formulatein the same terms as Malevitch ("Architecture begins where there are no practicalaims. Architecture as such."), was essential for the evolution of modern
architecture.52We know, in effect, that the audacityof
pure experimentation,that the elaborationof theoretical
models (such as the two final projectsthat Theo van Doesburg and Cornelis van Eesteren realized for the exhibition
of De Stijl architectsat the Galerie de "L'EffortModerne"
in 1923) did as much, if not more, for the evolution of the
"practical"architectureof this century as the demands of
necessity.

J. J. P. Oud felt himself condemned, if not excluded, by

such a distinction between two types of architecturalwork,
and refusedit categorically:"I am convinced that one
should constructnothing that - in one sense or another
- is not art," he respondedto Mondrian.53Certainly,
Mondrian replied, but then neoplasticismwill never be
reached this way: "The so-called practicecould never produce an architectureas N.P. Only an entirely new practice
could do this. And this practiceis completely inaccessible
to us in the present circumstances."And earlier in the
same letter, Mondrian reaffirmedthat "concerningthe distinction that I made between practicaland pure architecture, I do not think that for the moment there is any other
solution."54

For some time after this exchange, Oud and Mondrian

112

Bois

seemed to abandon furtherdiscussion of this point. Oud,

in fact, had just quarrelledwith van Doesburg, and as
their sharp argument had begun after their collaboration
on an architecturalproject, it is probablethat Mondrian
(who neverthelesstook van Doesburg'spart)did not want
to worsen things. He even tried to reconcile the architect
and the founder of De Stijl, but apparentlypreferredto
leave on one side, provisionallyat least, the burning issue
of architecture.The discussion was renewed after the publication of an interview that Mondrian had accorded a
Dutch journalist, in which he declared, "In Holland, there
are no longer any artistswho like and follow my work."55
Though he mentioned van Doesburg (then in Weimar)
and Vantongerloo (then at Menton), Mondrian made no
allusion to Oud: "I still do not know, in effect," Mondrian
wrote to him, "if you are in agreementwith me and if
aestheticallyyou search in the same direction. . . this is
why I did not cite you."56

technique: an active attitude (which would oblige technique to renew its methods, to improve itself by new inventions that, in return, would enlarge the possibilitiesof
the "plasticidea")or a passive attitude (to follow in the
wake of technique), a stance that held no interestfor him.
Theo van Doesburg was to formulate the same idea two
months later.61 Again Oud showed his irritation.The tone
of the letters between the two friends grew increasingly
sharp. In the following letter, Mondrian wrote, "It is evident that neoplasticism should envisage a union between
technique and aesthetics;this is also the idea of N. P.
That you end up in affirmingthe opposite is for me an
enigma." And he added that it was useless to continue to
correspondon the question of architecture:"We now know
more or less our reciprocalpoints of view and we should
let time do its work.'"62

As early as the appearanceof the first part of "De Realiseering van het Neo-Plasticisme,"Oud had explained his
reactionsto his friend. He did not want to limit himself to
neoplasticism, he said (just as later, in 1925, he would say
that he did not wish to limit himself to the functionalist
credo of the Modern Movement in architecture,of which
he had been one of the principal artisans).57The statement
provokedMondrian'swrath. Not to want "to be limited to
neoplasticism"was not to understandit, Mondrian wrote
in substance ("Bythis limitation, I do not feel myself inferior - on the contrary,it is my strength"),because the
principles of neoplasticismdid not admit of limitation.58
His next letter clarified the painter'sthoughts a little more:
"Neoplasticismis in advance of us because it is entirely
pure. This is the reason why it does not need to change,
and cannot do it. Only its realizationcan evolve."59

Oud, nevertheless, could not prevent himself from reopening the debate, in a letter of recriminationon an entirely
differentsubject (a picture that he wished to buy from
Mondrian). After having accused van Doesburg of every
sin, and having stigmatized"his destructivearchitectural
prophesies,"Oud wrote:"Yourlife is to paint, mine to
construct."63Confronted with this laconic phrase Mondrian was flabbergasted,though it in no way contradicted
the analytic programof De Stijl at its inception, to which
the painter had subscribed."I do not know how you arrive
at the traditionalidea of separatingconstructionand painting!" cried Mondrian - who said he did not understand
either the persistenceof the technical argumentsadvanced
by Oud against neoplasticism in architecture- "when I
have done everythingto explain to you that my ideas will
be possible in the future.'"64This suspended the correspondence between the two friends for nearly a year, and definitively closed the discussion of these questions.

Oud had by then read the second part of Mondrian'stext,

and had certainly made known to the painter his views on
the question of technique. Mondrian responded, "All these
technical difficulties you speak about cannot debase the
plastic idea, but, on the contrary,they construct it. ...
But if you wait in order to accept the truth, you will lose
yourself in technique alone.'"60There were thus for Mondrian two possible attitudesin the face of constructional

Let us now return to the article around which this correspondence was woven, Mondrian's"De Realiseeringvan
het Neo-Plasticisme."The first part, which he had characterized for Oud as "idealist,"65
was in some way a summary
of his theory about the context of life as a whole, the function of art in society, the "unshakableevolution" of human
civilization. Mondrian elaboratedfirst on the "metropolis,"
the dreamlandand breeding ground of modernity, but also
113

assemblage 4

on the "liberationof labor by the machine," on the provisionally reactionaryrole of "the masses," on the dialectical
necessity for destructionin every historicalprocess. He seriously criticized the conception of art as a luxury, which
he replaced with that of art as surrogate:"Throughoutthe
centuries, art has been the surrogatereconciling man with
his outward life.'"66He developed at length the (mythical)
theme of the end of art, of its dissolution in life, and this
was the only theme within which he evoked architecture:it
will be founded, Mondrian stated, in the same way as
painting, sculpture, and the decorativearts, in a much vaster totality, a new category, "architecture-as-environment."
But this would concern only the future. "The end [of art]
now would be premature. Since its reconstruction-as-lifeis
not yet possible, a new art is still necessary.'"67Art, including neoplasticistpainting, was indeed a surrogatefor Mondrian. He concluded - a direct echo of his long epistolary
dispute with Oud - with an evaluation of cubism as an
art of the past and with a hommage to van Doesburg as
the founder of the De Stijl group. In the second, "practical" part of "De Realiseering,"Mondrian entered immediately into the subject announced by the full title of the
article:"The Realization of Neo-Plasticism in the Distant
Future and in ArchitectureToday." He raisedmany kinds
of problems- to which we shall return- including the
"point of view" of the "spectator"in architecture,and the
opposition of the neoplastic work of art with the unharmonious totality of the exteriorenvironment. But the essential text addressedthe questions that Mondrian had
discussed with Oud and was intended as a direct response
to the architect's"objections."If Mondrian abandoned, as
he had foreseen, the too subtle distinction between architectuur and bouwkunst, it is because through his correspondence with Oud he had found a better solution: the
bouwen belonged to the world of the useful, the bouwkunst to the world of art. "Some [architects]were truly
convinced of the necessityof a new architecture,"wrote
Mondrian, referringto his friend'slecture, but they "doubt
the possibilitythat the Neo-Plastic idea can achieve realization-as-architecturetoday." We should note this today,
already included in the title, which carriesin itself the essential contradiction of his text: "The architecttoday lives
at the level of the 'practical-building'[of bouwen]- from

which art is excluded.Thus if he is responsibleto NeoPlasticism at all, he expects to realize it directlyin that
kind of building [bouwen].But ... Neo-Plasticismhas
first to be created as the 'workof art' [kunstwerk]."68In
sum, the architect is too busy, desiring immediate solutions.69 According to Mondrian, two possibilitiesremained
open to him.
The firstwas for the architect to abandon all aspirationsfor
utility and to strive to constructhis building as a workof
art in itself This was a necessarystage in the evolution of
architecture,an experimentalprefaceto the "dissolutionof
in the "environment-as-life."But this
architecture-as-art"
alternative, Mondrianadmitted, was at the time almost
impossible:foremostfor reasonsthat were economic (those
who had the power and the money were, with rareexceptions, hostile to the new); but also because to put an end
to the work of art requireda long preparation(we again
encounter the term used by Mondrian in his retrospective
text of 1942). An "experimentalinstitute"was needed, a
technical and formal laboratory(Mondrianwould claim
later that he was unawareof the existence of the Bauhaus
when he wrote these lines); while, instead, architectswere
condemned to dream of their projectson paper:"How can
[they] solve every new problem a priori?"he asked(a question whose theoretical implicationsare considerable,since
it concerns no less than a fundamentalcriticism of every
form of projection).Architectsshould be able to make
large-scalemodels in wood and metal, advisedMondrian;
a small monochrome plastermodel that showed only massing was ridiculouslyinsufficient for an interiorproject.70
The second possibilityopen to the architectwas to correct,
today, taking into account the principlesof neoplasticism,
the faults of existing architecture.This concerned only the
aspects of the "Neo-Plasticconception [that]can alreadybe
realized in current construction.""71The "all or nothing"
that Mondrian askedof Oud was not reciprocal:one could
already integratecertain "aspects"of neoplastic principles
into architecture.This was, in fact, a concession that
Mondrian had grantedOud: the "aspects"in question were
preciselythe "traits"of modern architecturelisted by the
architect in his lecture, the most essential of which was the
abandonmentof ornament. To this exact proposition
114

Bois

Mondrian related once more the myth of the engineer as

"noble savage"and of unconscious utilitarianbeauty:
"Utilitarianobjects become beautiful through their basic
form, that is, in themselves.Yet they are nothing in themselves: they become part of the architecturethrough their
form and color.""72
Nevertheless he renounced the idea of
an
according exclusively positive role to utility:"It can
even limit beauty."(Though the example he gave of the
wheels and circular forms of certain mechanical installations in factoriesmight give rise to a smile.)
Such for Mondrian in 1922 were the two options offered
to the architect by neoplasticism, "in present circumstances."But Mondrian did not stop his discussion there,
wishing precisely to addressthese "circumstances"(the
technical difficulties invoked by Oud) and functionalist
theory. Many assertions, gently contradictory,punctuate
the painter'stext at this point. The first is the desire of
neoplasticismto separateitself from the "anatomical"conception of functionalism, a concept that stressestoo much
the structureof a building and lays claims to its constructive purity [constructievzuiverheid];it was doubtless on this
subject that Mondrian penned this enigmatic sentence to
Oud: "I believe that it is dangerousto search exclusively
for purity."73On these lines, it is interestingto note that
Mondrian did not seem at all adverseto the idea of a contestation of the constructivegivens of architectureby color
("The color is supportedby architecture,or annihilates it,
as required").4 For it is known that the principal reason
for Mondrian'sdeclared hostility to "elementarism"- the
elementarism of van Doesburg, which displaced the right
angle of neoplasticism to forty-fivedegrees, and made a
bundle of dynamic oblique lines out of the horizontalsand
verticals- would be that it is opposed to architecture.
Now in 1926, shortly after having officially taken his position against elementarism, Mondrian stressedhis antianatomical position and even spoke of the need for a
counter-construction(the very term was drawn from van
Doesburg)that would destroythe "naturalorganism"of architectural construction:"This has present importance,"he
added, "because, in architecturealso, the new movement
sometimes appearstoo quick to follow naturalorganism."75
Thus that Mondrian was so opposed to van Doesburg on
this point is uncertain. Indeed, in 1933 he wrote to the

architect Alfred Roth that "to give architecturean 'open'

aspect, that is something alreadystriven for today, but this
problem can only be resolved to a certain point by architecture itself, because of its constructivelimitations and
utility. By the introduction of many windows, some doors,
by the placement of furnitureand equipment for light and
heat, etc., much can be done with respect to real construction, but why not make use of a fictive construction
that reinforcesreal construction, or else is opposed to
it . . . destroysit?"76In this process of consolidation / destruction, the active role is reservedfor color: "Neo-Plastic
architecturerequirescolor, without which the plane cannot be a living reality for us.77
Following examples of new materialscited in Oud's lecture - iron, concrete - and a depreciationof brick, the
"national"material of Holland, Mondrian assertedthat
"the idea . . . that structuremust be 'revealed'has already
been discardedby 'recent technology.'"'7Here, too, there
is some contradiction. First, because Mondrian gave to cement and to metal anticonstructiveand anti-anatomical
possibilities(he proposedas an example, the flat roof,
otherwise favoredby the theoreticiansof functionalism for
its "structuraltruth"),but at the same time held that brick
remained the slave to anatomy (Was Mondrian here making an implicit reference to Berlage?Nothing is less certain).79Secondly, because Mondrian also restatedwhat he
had written to Oud, to the effect that technique should
follow: "If the plastic concept demands that the structurebe
neutralized plastically, then the way must be found to satisfy the demands both of structureand of plastic."80
Many other questions are raised in this article, but its importance lies in the fact that for the firsttime Mondrian
was confronted with the architecturaltheory of the zakelijkheid, or in German the Sachlichkeit,which would lead
to the abuse of the InternationalStyle. Mondrian did not
develop this point after "De Realiseering,"he only reinforced his suspicion of "utilitarianism,"a simple "adoration
of function," according to the phrase of Theo van Doesburg."sCertainly, Mondrian admitted, modern architecture
is "purified"under the pressureof necessity, "but without
new aesthetic insight this remains accidental, uncertain;or
it is weakened by impure ideals, by concentrationon non115

assemblage 4

essentials"(1923).82 Or again, "Intellectconfuses intuition.

Tradition also exerts its influence. For lack of plastic understanding, the new materialsare badly used. For example, reinforced concrete is used to produce 'form,' instead
of being used 'constructively'to create a 'composition of
planes' that neutralize one another and destroylimiting
form"(1924).83 Finally, "At present, I see no chance of
achieving a perfect plastic expressionby simply following
the structureof what we build and studying its utility
alone" (1927).84
Mondrian would maintain this position until his death. He
even stressed, in his last texts, the distinction between
practicalarchitecture"whereaestheticshas to be largelyexcluded,"8sand architecture-as-art,fearing that the abuse of
functionalist theory tended to "suppress"aesthetic feelings."86Is this to say that the appeal to architectureand
industryin Mondrian'sAmerican autobiographywas only a
rhetoricalruse, a defensive argument?Is this to say that
Mondrian had lost all confidence in the practiceof architecture?What then are we to make of Mondrian'sown
foraysinto the architecturaldomain? To answerthese
questions, we must first return to one of the fundamental
axioms of Mondrian'stheory of art, one that essentially
concerns the function of architecture,the propositionthat
art is destined for "dissolution"in life.

The Interioras Ersatz

The theme of the end of art was, in fact, a commonplace
of the artistictheory of this century, at least of the theory
of every artistbelonging to what one could call the "constructivist"branch of modern art.87This theme appearedin
Mondrian'swriting as early as 1918 and persistedto the
end of his life.88 It was indubitablylinked to his (sketchy)
reading of Hegel (to whom Mondrian made a few references), or ratherof his Dutch popularizer,the philosopher
G. J. P. J. Bolland. The syncretic sources of neoplasticist
teleology were very differentfrom those of Russian constructivism(for which Marx was a primaryreference).But
even though his startingpoint was more theosophical than
materialist, Mondrian came to the same conclusions: neoplasticism, like Russian constructivism,preparedfor the
end of art; later, (much later, Mondrian sometimes under-

scored)there will be no difference between the artistand

the non-artist, and, in this "paradisiac"
future toward
which the "unshakableevolution"of humanity leads,
architecturewill no more exist than painting as art, as
a separateactivity. Architecturewill be dissolved, like
the other so-called plastic arts, into "architecture-asenvironment."As for the less "material"arts, said Mondrian, they will be directly"realized"in everydaylife.
"Music as art,"for example, "will come to an end. The
beauty of the sounds around us - purified, ordered,
And
brought to the new harmony- will be satisfying."89
Mondrian foresawthe same fate for dance, the theater, and
literature.
It is perhapsin his discussion of his "eschatological"vision
in architecturethat we can better understandthe reasons
for this utopia. For we might ask what led a painter- for
whom art consisted in privilegingthe materialconstituents
of painting (flatness, the relationshipof the frame to the
composition) and in contesting certain of the fundamental
givens of the pictorialaesthetic traditionsince antiquity
(oppositionof figure and ground, for example)- we
might ask what pushed Mondrian, for his entire life, to
shore up his pictorialpracticewith such a mythology. We
will not attemptto give a general and definitive explanation of this phenomenon; it is more to the point to determine the influence of this eschatologyon Mondrian's
architecturaltheory. We can, in effect, only be struckby
this sentence writtenby the painter in 1919: "Architecture
alwayspresupposesenclosure:the building standsout as a
thing against space."90 This "thingness"of architecture,as
of any object, is preciselywhat neoplasticismwishes to destroy:"unique beauty is the opposite of what characterizes
things as things."91Or again, "Everythingone contemplates for its own sake is indeed beautiful, but it has a
limited kind of beauty. When we see something as a thingin-itself, we separateit from the whole: oppositionis lacking - we no longer see relationshipsbut only color and
form. "92

And why this desire to abolish the thingness of the thing?

Because it is a form of separation, because the thing
"standsagainst":"Misery[of life] is caused by continual
separation."93From this we begin to understandthat the
116

Bois

myth of the end of art was one of the forces that pushed
Mondrian, in his painting, to want to abolish, or above all
"neutralize,"the opposition figure/ground:neoplasticism
(of which, for Mondrian, his painting was only, we must
remember, an "imperfect"reflection) is a principle of generalized fusion. "My work does not consist simply in the
making of things," he wrote to Oud, "it is much vaster
than that."" Neoplastic painting is only a substitute, "the
painting is a substitutefor the totality."95A picture is "the
most abstractthing possible,"the "mostdirect"expression
of the "abstract"(all Mondrian'stexts insist on this relativity);but it also remains a thing that is "posedagainst."
From whence the idea of a future disappearanceof painting into the environment, of a fusion of easel painting into
the "interior"(the Home, Mondrian called it), of the interior into the architectureof the whole house, of this into
the street, of the street into the whole city. Neoplasticism
is a totalizing principle that suffersno limitation: its realization, no doubt, sufferslimitations imposed by present
circumstances(this is why we can and should still paint
and, to a lesser degree, make architecture),but all this is
only provisional. From this stems, again, the way in which
Mondrian complied, all his life, in the domains wherecircumstancesallowed it, to principles elaboratedfor the future. To give one example: we know that Mondrian had
found in jazz an approximate"realization"of neoplasticism
in music; only he was displeasedby the presence of a melodic line. Charmion von Wiegand reportedthat when
Mondrian danced in New York to the rhythm of some
"boogie-woogie,"he quickly stopped and returnedto his
seat when the melody became too pregnant.96
This said, Mondrian very soon found himself confronted
with a theoretical problem, which he resolvedgradually:if
the question was to produce an art that "poseditself
against"in the least possible way, how could we justifythe
simple production of a neoplastic painting, let alone envisage a neoplastic architecture?Were they not themselves
opposed to the surroundingenvironment, despite the
"progress"accomplished by man in the "metropolis"on the
basis of "capricious"nature?To this question Mondrian
advanced three types of response.
The first, which concerned the painting, was the idea of

"productivedisharmony":the disaccordof the neoplastic

picture with its environment "will perhapsopen people's
eyes to the present environment - as it mostly is - in all
its traditionalismand arbitrariness.
"97This notion of productive disharmonywas then taken up for architecture,
more precisely for the Home: "And this is the great difficulty at present:the city is still unchangeable in contrastto
the home, which is being renewed. We must have the
strengthand courage to face a periodof disharmony.Fearing disharmony, we fail to advance today;still worse, we
adapt to the past. We must not adapt, we must create."98
Mondrian'ssecond response, which derived from his argument with Oud, concerned the building of architecture
considered as kunstwerk:for the moment, since we cannot
construct an entire city, since those who have the power
and the money understandnothing that is new, we are
constrainedto limit ourselves to isolated works, to "the individual building - which then assertsitself in contrastto
its environment, to nature, to traditionalor miscellaneous
building.'"""I do not want to create the house-for-itself,"
Mondrian wrote to Oud, "but if only 'one house' is
possible, and not a city, then I will make a house-asneoplasticism. . . . Certainly in the long run, the whole
will end up like its partsand respond to neoplasticism."'00
The importantthing was that the neoplastic work should
the environment;
be "a world-in-itself,"which "abstracts"
that is to say, it should be strong enough not to allow any
interferencefrom the exterior, because there can be no
"harmonybetween nature and man's construction."''1This
was no longer a case of "productivedisharmony,"but of a
retrenchmentfrom the daily context, even if this retrenchment was provisional. This argument was clearly in contradiction with the rest of Mondrian'stheory, only to be
reconciled through the notion of the surrogate:if fusion in
the grand totality was impossible, we would begin by elaborating microcosms that would ultimately, by virtue of the
"inevitableevolution," be in harmony with the whole.
Nevertheless, this second solution did not satisfyMondrian, and he tried to establish a third type of answer,
which he began to formulate as early as 1920.
This third "reply"concerned the entire theory of the architectural interior, a theory that Mondrian put into practice
117

assemblage 4

...

..

.N ..........m

--------

...... .
...

.ploded

8-10. Piet Mondrian,project

for a Salon pour Madame
B ..., a Dresden, 1926; exbox plan and oblique
projections

11. Mondrian,model for the

set of L'Ephemereest 4ternel, a
play by Michel Seuphor, 1926
(unexecuted)
118

12, 13. Mondrian'sstudio in

Paris,circa 1926

in his studios in Paris and New Yorkand in the projectfor

a Salon pour Madame B . . . of 1926, as well as, to a

lesser degree, in the model for a theaterset that he realized

the same year for Michel Seuphor'splay L'Ephemereest
eternel.
We will not analyze these realizationsby Mondrian:first,
because Nancy Troy has alreadyaccomplishedthis in a
remarkableway and, second, because it is Mondrian'stheory and its contradictionsthat interestsus here.102 It should
be kept in mind, however, while examining this theory,
that it was not elaboratedin a vacuum but was continually
that in itself conput to the test in the "work-in-progress"
stituted Mondrian'satelier.
The point of departurefor this theory of the interiormight
be statedthus: The Home is certainlyopposed to the external environment (argument 1), but is by its nature a unity
more easily controlled than the whole building; it is a
whole, a "world-in-itself"(argument2, de facto).103
Though ideally we should no longer consider the Home as
a separaterefuge (this is the sense of the whole of the cele14. Mondrian'sstudio in Paris,
circa 1930

brated article "Le Home -

la Rue -

la Cit6"), it is never-

theless a closed totalitythat, as a room enclosed by walls,

ought to be able to resolve directlythe question of the
articulationpainting/architecture.

The first importanttext by Mondrian on the interiorwas

included in the long "trialogue""Natuurlijkeen abstracte
realiteit"of 1919-20. In this series of articles, Mondrian
undertooka descriptionof his studio, by graduallyrevealing, in a "conversation"modeled on Platonic maieutics,
his conception of the "total"room. This concerned, he
explained, the articulationof space:"A room has to be
more than an empty space bounded by six empty planes
facing one another:it must be an articulatedand therefore
119

assemblage 4

a partially filled space bounded by six articulatedplanes

that opposeone another by their position, dimension, and
color."'04 This was because space, if not fixed, articulated,
is for us empty and "undefined":The idea was taken from
the Italian futurists, and would be taken up again in an
extraordinarilyprofound way by the foundersof Polish
"Unism," Wladislaw Strzeminskiand KatarzynaKobro.105
This was also the conception of space that Rietveld would
develop in the interiorsof the SchroderHouse in Utrecht.
Mondrian admitted that in traditionalinteriorarchitecture
furniture alreadyfunctioned to divide up the space, but "in
a decorative and capricious way." In the neoplastic interior,
everythingshould contribute to the harmony of the whole,
with no detail being privilegedthat might gain attention by
its "individuality."For this reason, Mondrian advisedturning pictures with their faces to the wall (at least those that
were not neoplasticist), because in this way their rectangular format would harmonize with the horizontal/vertical
rhythm of the architecture. Certainly, he acknowledged,
not everything had to be "made square"(a dinner service,
for example, was obviously obliged to have certain curves,
but it would suffice to hide it after use).106 Moreover,we
could not transformevery being or thing: modern fashion
and makeup, which offered so many advantagesas against
"naturalculture," could not yet totally disguise the "natural"appearanceof our bodies.107
Mondrian did not hide the extreme difficulties involved in
realizing this unbounded ambition towardtotalization. He
even confessed an inability to give a very precise image of
it,'1s having himself only dealt with existing architecture,
whether in his atelier or in his project for the Salon. 109He
furthermorewrote to van Doesburg of his conviction that
"the interior is going to be the thing. But in the future.
. I am convinced that we are now only capable of
doing it on paper, on account of these rotten architects,
valets of the public.""1 The principal difficultyarose from
the fact that architects only conceived of the room as a
box, "a space bounded by six empty planes with openings
for doors and windows";they believed that the proportions
of the room alone served to render it habitable:this could
certainly "satisfyus at first glance, but not in the long
run.

"11

And it was with regardto this "six-sidedbox"that the

major contradictionsin Mondrian'sarchitecturaltheory
emerged, widening the gap between his theory and practice. We have noted that he consideredthe obligatoryvolumetric condition of architectureto be disastrous;yet
everythingthat he has said on the internal division of the
room by differentobjects seems, on the contrary,to show
that he had finally integratedarchitecturalthree-dimensionality into his theory. If indeed this long "trialogue,"
where Mondrianspoke in detail about his conception of
the interior, constituteda clear advance in his theory of
architecturalspace, the way in which he seems to resolve
the problem might appearambiguous (he was in fact to
return very quickly to his previous, antivolumetricpositions, modifying them slightly). And since it was over this
point that the criticismsof Mondrian'sarchitecturaltheory
formulatedby van Doesburg- and also by Lissitzkystumbled, we will conclude by examining it in more
detail.
In December 1918, in "Het bepaaldeen het onbepaalde,"
Mondrian stated that architecturewas condemned to corporeality."It involves perspectivevision of its relationships,
or of some of them, and thus impairsthe pure perception
of relationships.""'2 His proposedsolution was that "both
architectureand sculpturewill gain in purityby becoming
planar plastic so far as is possible.""3In the "trialogue"of
1919-20, Mondrian'sthought had evolved considerbly,but
the theoretical solution was extremelyfragile. "Y"(the
amateur of painting)asks"Z"(the neoplastic painter)how
he reconciled the requirementsof planimetricsand the
"closed"totalityof his paintingswith the changing perception that we might have of an interior, given that we do
not perceive it "as a whole all at once." "Z"respondswith
the concept of interiorimage:"We surveythe room visually, but inwardlywe also form a single image. Thus, we
perceive all its planes as a single plane. ... . Isn't the
three-dimensionalunity [sic] of the wall surfacesprecisely
a means whereby we may move in severaldimensions inwardly,that is, more deeply?""4
Mondrian himself was unconvinced by this argument, and
he returned, two years later, to the problem of architectural volumetrics, tryingto temper his first accusations
120

Bois

15. Theo van.Doesburg, sketch

in a letter to J. J. P. Oud, 12
September 1921

"The enagainst architecture(those of "perspectivity"):

trenched belief that architecturedeals only with threedimensional 'plastic'helps to explain why the 'plane'
expressionof Neo-Plasticism is regardedas impossible for
architecture. ... It is the (perspective)vision of the past,
which Neo-Plasticism abolishes.""' There follows a strange
explanation:"The new vision (even before Neo-Plasticism)
does not proceed from one fixed viewpoint:it takes its
viewpoint everywhereand it is not limited to any one position. It is not bound by space or time (in accord with the
theory of relativity).Practically,it takes its position in front
of the plane (the most extreme possibilityof plastic intensification). Thus it regardsarchitectureas a multiplicity of
planes: once more the plane."116This is indeed a contradictory statement, since the multiplicity of viewpoints, theoretically claimed, serves to produce "in practice"a single
viewpoint, "in front of the plane." Despite its incoherence,
this is the position that Mondrian was to hold until his
death. Freely translatingthis passagein an article that he
gave to L'Architecturevivante in 1925, Mondrian added,
"... thus the work of architectureappearsas a multiplicity
of planes, not of prisms, as in 'volumetricconstruction.'
Nor is there any danger of lapsing into 'fa;ade-architecture,' its ubiquitous point of view preventsthis error."Because it is exclusively abstract,this pluralityof planes
becomes a plane image.1"7
In spite of the reference to the theory of relativity(a cliche
of the time), the mobility of the viewpoint is in no way
intended to produce a "space-timecontinuum," such as
that desired by van Doesburg. It does not lead to a multitude of changing and diffuse perceptions. Nothing in this
neoplastic interior is comparablewith that bar where
"everythingmoves," which had neverthelessseduced Mondrian."8 In one of his last texts, in 1943, Mondrian even
reduced movement to a series of "poses"and, similarly,
cinematic perception to a decomposition of realityinto
two-dimensional images, seeing in the visual process an
of Etienneorganic equivalent to the chronophotographie
around
[architectureor sculpJules Marey:"By moving
two-dimensional
of
a
the
aspect is
impression
ture],
another
of
that
two-dimensional
followed
by
directly
aspect.1'9

Needless to say, this conception (which does not seem,

moreover, to correspondto the descriptionsthat Mondrian
gave of his atelier) is in perfect contradictionwith all
twentieth-centuryarchitecturalthought. As early as 1921,
van Doesburg had understoodthat this position was in
some measure absurd, and he wrote to Oud:
I am now certainthatpaintingin the interior,i.e., in 3 dimensions, bringswith it entirelydifferentdemandsthanpaintingon a
plane.The interioragainbringsthe timeelementto attention,
and the earlierornamentality
(continuousornament,e.g.) wasa
vague,decorativemannerof solvingtime andspaceas a unity.
Since in his lastarticleMondriaancompletelydeniesthe time
momentand wantsto banishit frompainting,for him 3-dimensionalpainting(i.e., space-timepainting)mustbe impossible.He
remainslimitedto the 2-dimensionalcanvasand the attemptto
solvea 5-planespaceas I whole is impossiblein termsof 2dimensionalpainting.Thus whatMondriaanhas madein his
is restricted
to one plane(window
atelierwith coloredcardboard
plane)and is thereforealsoa paintingin 2 dimensions[sketch,
see figure15]. ...
Mondriaanas a man is not modernbecause,in my opinion,
althoughhe has developedpsychicallytowardsthe new, spiritually he belongsto the old. By this I meanthathe stillseesthe
thussomethinglikethe
spiritualas a conceptualabstraction,
theosophists.Of life itselfas realityhe is in factafraid.He thinks
life, but doesnot live it. He makeshis conception,whichof
courseis verygood, too much aboutan idealimageoutsideof
normallife. .. .120
As for Lissitzky,he found himself deceived when he discovered Mondrian'sproject for the Salon pour Madame
B . . .: "I expected something clearer,"he wrote, "Once
again it is really a still life of a room, for viewing through
the keyhole."'12This was the same idea, formulatedin another metaphor, as the "windowplane," invoked by van
Doesburg.
It is not then astonishing - if one takes account of Mondrian'santivolumetricprecepts- that Rietveld had been
suspicious of any direct "application"of his painting into
architecture. Nor is it any more surprisingthat he should
have declared himself totally uninterestedin Mondrian's
architecturaltheories, even finding them unintelligible. 22
And indeed it is difficult to understandhow architectural
criticism has so often been able to invoke Mies van der

121

assemblage 4

16. Appel de protestation,

published in De Stijl, 1925

Appel
contre le

de

Protestation

refus de la participation du groupe ("DE STIJL,, B l'Exposition

des Arts D&coratifs
(Section des Pays-Bas)
ElicDE

Ir
.
I'E.rpo.ilio

J,al'e

dsl

.I
I
.d,'.o"
rt.
a,'rr c,rtiiItul,

,,trtifs.

qtue

I.r
surr?,u,';

gio

STlll,
I/,,

roitr

' ,l,apu 'a

pas
i(hra
a

r,.rexpo.sition

at

J. LtIUM.Pysis
des Pays-Bas
m.11lut18sadc"r

Malgr' cet encouragementde I'Ambassadeurdes Pays-Bas A Paris, le groupe DE STIJL a 6te refuse par la commission
g6n&raleen Hollande. Au lieu de demontrer,comme les autrespays, les tendancesdes difflrents groupes,la CommissionNierlandaise a refus6 radicalementle groupe DE STIJL. C'est pourquoique la representation
des Pays-Bas manqueson devoir, elle
ne montreaucun signe de l'esprit nouveaudans la Hollande.
annees
?
une
lutte
de
directrice
du
mouvement
DE
(des 1916), la pensee
plusieurs
STIJL, a gagn la sympathieet
Grace
I'influencedans tous les pays.
Le Directeur de la revue DE STIJL vous invite a soussignercette Protestationet Asoutenirson projet d'une expositionde
son groupe, au commencementde I'hiver 1925.
Kiesler (Autriche) ; le Comte Kielmansegg (Allemagne) ; Prof. Steinhoff (Autriche) ; G. Guevrikian (Perse) : Prof.
Strnad (Autriche) ; D. Sternberg (Russie) ; Prof. J. Hoffmann (Autriche) ; Aug. Perret (France) ; Marie Dormoy
(France) ; Feuerstein Bedrich (Tcheco-Slovaquie) ; Osw. Haerdtl (Autriche); Sliwinski (Pologne); Ad. Loos (Tchbco-SIovaquie); Tristan Tzara (Roumanie); G. Antheil (Ambrique); Kurt Schwitters (Allemagne); A. Wegerif-Gravestein (PaysBas); Rob. Mallet-Stevens (France); Walter Gropius (Allemagne); F. T. Marinetti(Italie); Kees Kuiler (Pays-Bas); C. van
Eesteren (Pays-Bas); G. Rietveld (Pays-Bas); V. Huszar(Pays-Bas);Jan Wils (Pays-Bas).

Rohe to show the influence of Mondrian on the architecture of this century:what, we must ask as a conclusion to
this study, does the fluid space of the BarcelonaPavilion of
1929, for example, share with the frozen planarityof the
interioras conceived by Mondrian?

Epilogues

17. J.-F.Staal, Dutch Pavilion,

ExpositionInternationale des
Arts Decoratifs, Paris,1925

Two theatricalsketches to conclude, the firsta little disrespectful. In 1925, at the Exposition Internationaledes Arts
D6coratifs,the De Stijl group was excluded from the
Dutch delegation. This was the logical consequence of the
campaign waged by the architectsof the Amsterdam
School (groupedaround the review Wendingen,ever the
enemy of De Stijl), who obtained not only the commission
for the Dutch pavilion (given to J. F. Staal)but also the
monopoly to fabricateeverythingit contained.123 Van
Doesburg was justly furious and made his indignation
known loudly. He edited an Appel de protestationcontrele
refusde la participationdu groupe De Stijl (Cry of protest
againstthe refusal of participationfor the De Stijl group),
which he had distributedat the opening of the exhibition.
The text was signed not only by Gabriel Gu6vr6kian,Auguste Perret, Robert Mallet-Stevens- in brief, everyone
who counted in contemporaryFrench architecture(we
note only the absence of Le Corbusier,hardlygenerous in
his regardfor young colleagues and morbidlyjealous)but also by TristanTzara, Adolf Loos, WalterGropius,
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and many others. Four mem122

Bois

bers and ex-members of De Stijl affixed their signature:

van Eestreren, Rietveld, Huszar, and Jan Wils (the last two
despite their falling out with van Doesburg). The defection
of Oud was cruel, but worse and much less explicable, was
that of Mondrian. If not the cause of the celebratedestrangementbetween Mondrian and van Doesburg, this defection, occurring before Mondrian had taken issue with
van Doesburg'suse of the oblique, is its first manifestation.
For the painter did not content himself with ignoring the
Appel:he participatedin an enquiry, organizedby the
journal Het Vaderland, intended to collect favorablereviews of the Dutch pavilion and to confound van Doesburg by showing his relative isolation. Mondrian declared,
"Without speakingof my own vision of contemporaryart, I
have the very highest appreciationfor the Dutch pavilion.
It is still too rich on the outside and based too much on an
old principle of construction."'24 The qualificationof the
second sentence makes one think of the whole passageas
bearing a typographicerror,but there is nothing of the
kind. Mondrian was himself to cite literallyhis declaration
to Oud, and seemed surprisedto find himself reprimanded
by van Doesburg:"Doesburgreproachesme now for having ranged myself with the Wendingen mob and going
against my principles."'25And, in fact, it is hard to see
how Mondrian, who unceasingly railed againstthe use of
brick and curves and ironized againstthe volumetric nature of architecture, could defend that "blackfarm, absurd,
darkas a church, decoratedwith its crinoline of bricks"
(van Doesburg).
Doubtless this "outburst"by Mondrian could be explained
by his increasingbad humor with van Doesburg. He had
taken poorly a qualifying note that van Doesburg had appended to the last text that he published in De Stijl: Mondrian, alluding to the way in which he painted flowersto
survive, had declared that "the artisthas few chances to
earn money outside his own field; but if the buyers demand naturalisticart, then the artistcan produce this with
his skills, distinct from his 'own work."'Very dogmatically
van Doesburg had noted, "The editors decline all responsibility for this statement.'"126Nevertheless, we cannot absolve Mondrian from a certain inconstancy:this would,
indeed, allow us not to take his architecturaltheories too
seriously, or, at least, not to follow them literally.

A second act, more honorable for the painter.

The architects, as we have said, were appreciativeof Mondrian'sart, were among his firstand most faithful collectors, and did not hold him rigorouslyaccountable for the
intransigenceof his architecturaltheory, for its evident incomprehension with regardto the spatial and volumetric
nature of their art. As for Mondrian, he was pleased and
flatteredby their support, even though he treatedthem
sometimes, as we have seen, as "valetsof the public." On
11 June 1935, during a dinner that ended a workingmeeting of delegates to the fourth CIAM, the diners spoke of
Mondrian and decided to send him collectively their
"cordialgreetings."Under the letterheadof CIAM and a
friendly sentence, were added at least thirty signatures,
among them those of Walter Gropius, SiegfriedGiedion,
Jose Luis Sert, Wells Coates, Karl and Werner Moser, and
a large number of Dutch architects, including Mart Stam,
van Eesteren, and Charles Karsten.Charles Karsten'swife
was charged to send the letter;the paper was lightly soiled,
as she noted in apology on the back. Despite his obsession
with hygiene, this was one of the rare letters, if not the
only one, that Mondrian kept.127
Notes
This text firstappearedin French in
La Revue de l'art (Winter 1981);
the notes have been revised for
publication here. All quotations
from Mondrian are from the recent
English translationof his complete
writings, The New Art - The New
Life: The Collected Writings of Piet
Mondrian, ed. and trans. Harry
Holzman and Martin S. James
(Boston:G. K. Hall, 1986); the variant spellings of this translation
have been retained.
I wish to thank the many people
who have helped me during this
work, notably those who have facilitated access to certain documents:
among these HerbertHenkels (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) who
has courteously furnished many illustrations,Joop Joosten (Stedelijk

123

Museum, Amsterdam),and Nancy

Troy (NorthwesternUniversity,
Chicago). I wish, above all, to
thank Anne van der Jagt(Fondation
Custodia, Institut Neerlandais,
Paris)for having allowed me to read
Mondrian's correspondencewith
Oud, for having placed at my disposition the translationthat she has
completed of certain of the letters,
and for having correctedmine, the
most needy case of all.
1. Charmion von Wiegand, "Mondrian, a Memoir of his New York
Period,"Arts Yearbook4 (1961): 58.
2. T~riade, "Documentations sur la
peinture - III Consequences du
Cubisme," Cahiers d'arts 5, no. 1
(1930): 22.
3. Rene Jean, "Les Expositions,"
Comoedia, 21 May 1931.

assemblage 4

4. Reyner Banham, "Mondrianand

the Philosophy of Modern Design,"
ArchitecturalReview (October
1957): 227-29. Here Banham stigmatizes this superficial appreciation
of Mondrian and concludes: "There
are very good reasons why floors are
horizontal and walls commonly vertical, and these underly the equally
good reasons why most structural
systems and prefabricationmethods
also have a rectangularformat, but
to promote these practical considerations to the level of absolutes is to
abdicate the freedoms that are the
prerequisitesof progress."Even if
Banham comes a little too quickly
to the conclusion that the architectural theory of De Stijl - that of
van Doesburg - is in fact functionalist and influenced by German
architectureand the Bauhaus (ergo,
that it is different from that of
Mondrian), one can only approve
of his irony in the face of a body of
dominating prejudices. On van
Doesburg'santifunctionalism (and
antianatomism)from 1922 on, and
on the way this antifunctionalism is
set forth in the architecturalprojects
he designed with Cornelis van Eesteren for the Paris De Stijl show of
1923 (Galerie de "L'EffortModerne," directed by L6once Rosenberg), see Yve-Alain Bois and
Nancy Troy, "De Stijl et I'architecture A Paris,"and Bruno Reichlin,
"Le Corbusier vs. De Stijl," in De
Stijllet l'architectureen France, ed.
Yve-Alain Bois and Bruno Reichlin
(Brussels:Mardaga, 1985), pp. 2790 and 91-108.
5. Van Doesburg is clearest on this
point elsewhere in his texts where
he takes his distance from neoplasticism: "Whateverconstruction is
used, matter remains subject to the
force of gravity.It makes no essential difference whether architecture
uses load-and-carryconstruction,
that based on tension or no con-

struction at all" ("Schilderkunsten

plastiek- over contra-compositie
en contra-plastiek,"De Stijl 7, nos.
75-76 [1927]: 35; trans. in Joost
Baljeu, Theo van Doesburg [London: Studio Vista, 1974], p. 157).
Even if van Doesburg could not
foresee the parabolicshells of the
fifties, the result of an entirely new
application of reinforcedconcrete
(precisely in tension), his remark
still remains pertinent today:architecture is condemned to be erected
(vertically)on a ground (horizontal);
the "H/V"is the essential condition
of architecture.
6. The first occurrence of this celebratedcomparison can be found in
Alfred Barr,Cubism and Abstract
Art (New York:Museum of Modern Art, 1936), pp. 156-57. Mies
himself entirely rejectedthat kind of
comparison in an interviewwith
Peter Blake, which is worth
quoting:
Blake:A lot of art critics claim that
your work is very much influenced
by De Stijl, by van Doesburg.
Mies: No, that is absolute nonsense, you know.
Blake:Why don't you explain why?
Mies: Van Doesburg saw these
drawingsof the office building. I
explained it to him, and I said,
'This is skin-and-bonesarchitecture.' After that he called me an
anatomical architect. I liked van
Doesburg, but not as though he
knew very much about architecture.
He designed houses or buildings together with van Eesteren, the city
planner. But mostly he was interested in his particularkind of art.
Like Mondrian. Once in Diisseldorf
he proposedthe dictum that everything should be square!But there is
no influence. The same people
claim that I was influenced by
Mondrian in the first building for
the I.T.T. campus, the Metals

Buildings. This one has a wall that

they say looks like a Mondrian. But
I remembervery well how it came
about. Everythingwas donated for
this whole building. The site - we
had 64 feet from the railroadto the
sidewalk. Somebody gave them a
travellingcrane - it was 40 feet
wide, so we needed 42 from center
of column to center of column.
The rest was laboratories,you
know. Everythingwas there - we
needed steel bracing in the wall,
the brickwall. It was a question of
the building code. You can only
make an eight-inch wall so big,
otherwise you have to reinforceit.
So we did that. Then when everything was finished, the people from
the Metals Building, the engineers,
they came and said, 'We need here
a door.' So I put in a door. And the
result was the Mondrian!
Peter Blake, "A Conversationwith
Mies," ed. GerhardtM. Kallmann,
in Four Great Makersof Modern
Architecture:Gropius, Le Corbusier,
Mies van der Rohe, Wright, a verbatim recordof a symposium held
from March to May 1961 at the
School of Architecture,Columbia
University, New York, pp. 101-2.
On the strangerelationshipbetween
van Doesburg and Mies (who participated in the architecturalshow
of De Stijl in Paris in 1923) and
their ambiguous correspondence,
see Bois and Troy, "De Stijl et l'architecturea Paris,"pp. 47-48.
7. Rietveld must, nevertheless,
have been interestedin the pictorial
work of Mondrian:on 18 March
1922 he thanked Oud for having
broughtto his attention the Mondrian retrospectiveat the Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam,adding, "I
had alreadyheard of him. But each
time that you see something interesting to look at, it alwaysgives me
pleasure that you let me know"
(copy of letter in the archivesof the

124

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague). It

is also interestingto note that
through the interventionof Oud,
Rietveld tried - unsuccessfullyto convince one of his acquaintances in Utrecht to purchase a
painting by Mondrian (see the correspondenceof Mondrian with
Oud, Fondation Custodia, Institut
N6erlandais,Paris, notably letter A.
437 of 4 December 1927). By contrast, Mondrian found the furniture
of Rietveld "still a bit forced"when
he saw it reproducedin De Stijl
(letterto van Doesburg, 11 April
1920, Van Doesburg Archive,
Dienst VerspreideRijkskollekties,
The Hague).
8. Gerrit Rietveld, "Mondrianen
het nieuwe bouwen," Bouwkundig
Weekblad,73th year, no. 11 (15
March 1955): 128. In fact, a geometrical simplification of the domestic art of lead-glazing, very
fashionable in Holland at the beginning of the century, shortly followed the birth of De Stijl. But
beyond severalexperimentsin this
domain by Theo van Doesburg and
Vilmos Huszar, the essential role
was played by Johan Thorn Prikker,
whose compositions, sometimes abstract, owe nothing to neoplasticism
(see Paul Wember, Johan Thorn
Prikker[Krefeld:Scherpe Verlag,
1966], pp. 200-16). One of the
sponsorsof the Caf6 Aubette, Andre
Horn, had asked van Doesburg and
Thorn Prikkerto provide stained
glass for his apartment(see JeanLouis Faure, "L'Aubetteet ses cr6ateurs,"Plaisir de France 38, no.
394 [November 1971]: 26-27).
9. Rietveld, "Mondrianen het
nieuwe bouwen," p. 128.
10. The exhibition took place at
the Valentine Gallery, JanuaryFebruary1942. Mondrian'stext,
"Towardthe True Vision of Reality"is reprintedin The New Art The New Life: The Collected Writ-

Bois

ings of Piet Mondrian, ed. and

trans. HarryHolzman and Martin
S. James (Boston:G. K. Hall,
1986), see p. 340 for the passage
quoted here. This book will be referredto henceforth as The New
Art.
11. Mondrian, "Towardthe True
Vision of Reality,"The New Art,
p. 340.
12. Mondrian, The New Art, p.
237. The text was not published in
L'Intransigeant,where Mondrian
sent it, but it served as the basis for
his response to the inquiry on abstractart organized by the Cahiers
d'art ("De l'art abstrait,"Cahiers
d'art 6, no. 1 [1931]: 41-43).
13. Mondrian, "Towardthe True
Vision of Reality,"The New Art, p.
340.
14. Piet Mondrian, "De Realiseering van het Neo-Plasticisme in
verre toekomst en in de huidige architectuur"[The Realization of
Neo-Plasticism in the Distant Future and in ArchitectureToday], pt.
2, De Stijl 5, no. 5 (1922): 66;
trans. in The New Art, p. 170. Els
Hoek is right in insisting on the divergent views of Mondrian and van
Doesburg on this matter, which led
to their first major disagreement
around 1922-23; see Els Hoek,
"Piet Mondrian," in De Stijl: The
FormativeYears, ed. Carel Blotkamp (Cambridge:MIT Press,
1986), pp. 70-72.
15. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 1, De Stijl 5, no. 3 (March
1922): 46; The New Art, p. 169.
16. Letter to Alfred Roth, 26 June
1933; cited in Alfred Roth, Begegnung mit Pionieren(Basel and
Stuttgart:Birkhiuser Verlag 1973),
p. 175.
17. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, 16 December 1920, A. 383, Fondation
Custodia.

18. Piet Mondrian, Le Neo-plasticisme:Principegdneralede l'9quivalence plastique (Paris:Editions de

l'EffortModerne, 1920). p. 14;
trans. in The New Art, p. 147.
Even though bearing the date 1920,
this small book was only published
at the beginning of 1921.
19. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 71; The New Art, p. 172.
20. Mondrian realized this "composition" at the request of his friend
van Assendelft. Today it belongs to
the Gallery Beyeler in Basel. See
Joop Joosten, "Documentatie over
Mondrian (4)," Museumjournaal
18, no. 4 (September 1973).
21. Mondrian mentioned this work
in his correspondencewith Oud
(letter of 26 December 1926, A.
428 [2]) and with Fel1ixDel Marle.
The latter asked him to design the
cover of Vouloir 25 (1927), a special issue on the ambiance; Mondrian categoricallyrefused(letter of
7 January1927). See my "Mondrian en France, sa collaboration'a
Vouloir, sa correspondenceavec
Del Marle," Bulletin de la Socidte
de I'Histoirede l'Art Frangais
(1981): 281-94.
22. Letterto Alfred Roth, 26 June
1933; cited in Roth, Begegnung mit
Pionieren, 173-74.
23. Mondrian, Le Nio-plasticisme,
p. 7; The New Art, p. 140.
24. Piet Mondrian, "De Nieuwe
Beelding in de schilderkunst"[The
New Plastic in Painting], introduction, De Stijl 1, no. 1 (October
1917): 4; trans. in The New Art, p.
29. In Le Neo-plasticisme, Mondrian does not quote the full passage, which proceeds as follows:
"Each art has its own emphasis, its
particularexpression:this justifies
the existence of the various arts.
We can now define the emphasis of
the art of painting as the most consistent expressionof pure relation-

ships. For it is painting's unique

privilege to expressrelationships
freely- in other words, its means
of expression(through consistent
and thorough transformation)allow
extreme opposites to be expressedas
the pure relationshipsof position,
without assuming form, or even the
appearanceof form (as in architecture), through enclosure." This last
sentence is particularlysignificant,
not only beause it is the first remark
Mondrian ever published on architecture, but also because it provides
a clue to what would be his lifelong
position: architecturecannot escape
the realm of form (through enclosure), hence it is bound to "the particular,"i.e., it can never reach
"the absolute."
25. Bart van der Leck, "De Plaats
van het moderne schilderen in de
architectuur,"De Stijl 1, no. 1\
(October 1917): 6-7.
26. Bart van der Leck, "Over
schilderen en bouwen," De Stijl 1,
no. 4 (March 1918): 37-38.

27. Ibid., 38.

28. Theo van Doesburg, "Aanteekeningen over monumentale kunst,"
De Stijl 2, no. 1 (November 1918):
10; trans. in A. L. C. Jaff6,De Stijl
(London: Thames and Hudson,
1970), p. 99.
29. Nancy Troy has well demonstratedhow the two theoretical texts
of van der Leck stemmed from his
difficulties with Berlage since their
collaborationover differentinteriors
for Mrs. Krller-Miiller, the painter
having difficulty in accepting the
yoke in which the architect wanted
to hold him (see Nancy Troy, The
De Stijl Environment [Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1985], pp. 10-16). Van
der Leck was to leave De Stijl after
the first year of the group'sexistence, according to his words,
because of the over-largespace al-

125

lotted to architecturein the journal

De Stijl.
30. Theo van Doesburg, "De Beteekenis van de kleur in binnen
en buitenarchitectuur,"Bouwkundig
Weekblad44, no. 21 (26 May
1923): 232; trans. in Baljeu, van
Doesburg, p. 137.
31. I cite the French translation
(and slight transformation)of this
passagefrom "Aanteekeningenover
monumentale kunst"that van
Doesburg himself gave in "L'Art
collectif et son importance sociale,"
Vouloir 25 (1927): n.p.
32. Piet Mondrian, "Natuurlijkeen
abstracterealiteit"[Natural Reality,
and AbstractReality], published in
twelve installments in De Stijl,
1919-1920 (this citation, De Stijl
3, no. 6 [April 1920]: 56; trans. in
The New Art, p. 111).
33. The title may imperfectlybe
translatedas "The Determinate and
the Indeterminate."Published in
De Stijl 2, no. 2 (December 1918):
14-19, this text was presentedas a
supplement to his long series of
texts entitled "De Nieuwe Beelding
in de schilderkunst"and published
during the whole first year of the
journal. It is very likely that van
Doesburg had asked Mondrian for a
text that would clarify and summarize the propositionscontained in
his series of articles:"Het bepaalde
en het onbepaalde"is in effect
much clearer. Prior to the long
enough fragment included in this
text, Mondrian had written nothing
on architecture, unless we count
the brief remarkon the specificity
of the arts in his first text for De
Stijl (see above n. 24) and a very
strangephrase in the third issue of
the journal (trans. in The New Art,
p. 37), on the fact that to control a
painting'srelationshipto architecture, its "colorsmust be painted in
the precise place where the work is

assemblage 4

to be seen." In a letter to van Doesburg probablyof 9 July 1918 (the

inscription of the date seems by van
Doesburg'shand), Mondrian expressedhis distrustfor architects,
criticizing van Doesburg for his desire to put them "at the same level
as us (with our N.P.)," and urging
him to keep the direction of De
Stijllfrom their greedy hands, as a
conflict was bound to arise. He
then concluded, only a few months
before writing "Het bepaalde en het
onbepaalde":"I cannot write about
architecturebecause I am not an
architect;I mean, I cannot write
like I write on painting. But later I
will eventually tell my ideas about
it." While in his "trialogue"defining architectureas tastbaar-reel
[tangiblyreal] (De Stijl 3, no. 2
[December 1919]), on another occasion Mondrian wrote to van
Doesburg:"It is so difficult to find a
word able to differentiatethe N.P.
in architectureand the N.P. in
painting"(letter of 4 December
1919). Both letters are in the Van
Doesburg Archive. We will see that
through his polemics with Oud,
Mondrian will become less and less
scrupulous about his "incompetence" in architecture.

the concepts plane and recession

seems to meet with some difficulties. Architectureis always dependent on recession, and planimetric
architecturesounds dangerouslylike
nonsense. On the other hand, even
if we admit that a building as a
body is subject to the same conditions as a plastic figure, we should
have to say that a tectonic structure,
which usually providesa frame and
backgroundfor sculpture itself,
could never, even to provide a
comparison, so far departfrom
frontalityas baroque sculpture does"
(Heinrich Wtlfflin, Principlesof Art
History, tr. M. D. Hottinger [New
York:Dover, 1950], p. 115). Wilfflin then proceeds to rescue his opposition from absurditywhen
applied to architecture.Although
Mondrian certainly never read
W6lfflin's book, it is interestingto
note here that both men were far
from imagining that a rejection of
frontalitywas going to be one of
modern architecture'sprogrammatic
claims. Further, this coincidence of
thought emphasizes that Mondrian's
view on architecturewas far more
dependent on a traditionalapproach
than he was aware of.

34. See, for example, Piet Mondrian, "L'Expressionnouvelle en

peinture,"Cahiers d'art 1, no. 7
(1926): 182; trans. in The New Art,
p. 203: "The new plastic and therefore the new aesthetic originatedin
painting, perhapsbecause painting
could concentrate on the plane,
and because it is freer than
architecture."

36. Piet Mondrian, "Kunstzonder

onderwerp,"catalogue of the exhibition AbstracteKunst (Amsterdam:
Stedelijk Museum, 1938), p. 7;
trans. in The New Art, p. 304. At
the same time as his polemics with
Oud - which would have a strong
role to play in the elaborationof his
architecturaltheory - Mondrian
was quarrellingwith a Belgian artist, Jozef Peeters, coeditor, with
Michel Seuphor, of the Anversbased journal Het Overzicht, about
the notion of applied art. Referring
to Peeters'svisit to his studio, Mondrian wrote to van Doesburg:"As
he applies the N.P., it does not
look like anything. Or rather,not
even like the N.P. He imitates

35. Mondrian'suneasiness here is

echoed by Wllflin in his KunstgeschichtlicheGrundbegriffe,first
published in 1915, when he is
about to put into play, in architecture, his second fundamental opposition, that of plane and recession:
"The transferenceto architectureof

everything, but it remains flat. ...

It is good that I talked to him as
now I can speak againstthis kind of
idea in my article on architecture.I
mean againstart applique [in
French in the text]. Oud also wrote
me again on architecture. I cannot
make anything clear to him, that is
why I'm writing the article. But this
article will remain a long time in
the making"(3 October 1921). After
a second visit from Peeters, Mondrian would write to van Doesburg
that the Belgian artist"is a dangerous man" and that he regrets"not
to have thrown him down the
stairs."This second visit prompted
Mondrian to workagain at his article against decoration in architecture: "It is an importantpoint and I
want to treat it togetherwith architecture"2 February1922). Mondrian's article, "De Realiseering,"is
analyzed below as directlyrelatedto
his correspondencewith Oud, but
his anger at Peetersmust also have
affected its redaction. Mondrian
himself wrote to van Doesburg,
"The first partgave me a lot of
trouble;the second part is more an
answer to Oud's objections and
against Peeters"(25 May 1922). All
three letters mentioned here are in
the Van Doesburg Archive.
37. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 71; The New Art, p. 172.
This is the final sentence of the
text.

cember 1919): 18; The New Art,

p. 102.
42. Ibid. In a letter to van Doesburg dated 8 January1919, Mondrian refersto a text by Huszar on
Van 't Hoff, entitled, like most of
his texts, "AesthetischeBeschouwing" [Aestheticconsiderations],
where he clearly differenciatesthe
true work of art from the production of the engineers (De Stijl 2,
no. 3 [January1919]: especially 29).
The text, writes Mondrian, "is not
very clear everywhere,and I disagree with him above all when he
speaksabout the engineer and says
that a train-engine is not a work of
art. Well, it's a difficult point. ...
But I see no major obstacle to the
publication of his piece. His hesitations come from the fact, it seems
to me, that he does not like van 't
Hoff's architecture,and I can understandthat, from what I know of
this kind of architecture"(Van
DoesburgArchive).
43. Theo van Doesburg, "De Taak
der nieuwe architectuur,"Bouwkundig Weekblad41, nos. 50 and
51 (11 and 18 December 1919):
278-85, and 42, no. 1 (8 January
1920): 8-10. See also in vol. 42 of
the same journal, "De Beteekenis
der mechanische esthetiek voor de
architectuuren de andere vakken,"
no. 25 (18 June): 164-66; no. 28 (9
July): 179-83; and no. 33 (13 August 1920): 219-21.

38. Ibid., p. 70; The New Art,

p. 172.

44. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, 1 August 1922, A. 404, Fondation Cus39. Piet Mondrian, "L'Architecture todia.
future neo-plasticienne,"L'Architec45. Oud's lecture appearedfirst in
ture vivante, special number on De
Dutch in BouwkundigWeekblad
Stijl (Autumn-Winter 1925): 11;
42, no. 24 (11 June 1921): 147-66.
trans. in The New Art, p. 196.
In France it was published first in
40. Mondrian, "Natuurlijkeen abstracterealiteit,"De Stijl 3, no. 3
(January 1920): 27; trans. in The
New Art, p. 103.

La Cite 4, no. 5 (Brussels, 1923),

and reprintedin the Bulletin de
"L'EffortModerne"4, 5, and 6
(April, May, and June 1924).

41. Ibid., De Stijl 3, no. 2 (De-

46. See J. J. P. Oud, "OverCub-

126

Bois

isme, Futurisme, moderne bouwkunst, enz.," BouwkundigWeekblad

37, no. 20 (16 September 1916):
156-57.
47. Oud, "L'Architecturede demain," Bulletin de "L'EffortModerne,"4 (April 1924):4.

48. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, 17

August 1921, A. 390, Fondation
Custodia. The brochure to which
Mondrian referredis Le Ndoplasticisme, in which he touches on
the architecturalquestion only in a
very general way. It is true, however, that in De Stijl, "Natuurlijke
en abstracterealiteit"had opened
the theme of the architecturalinterior in more concrete terms, as we
will see. To illustratethe publication of his conference in Bouwkundig Weekblad,Oud reproduceda
canvas by Mondrian, with the caption, "Example of a painting where
the contingency of the natural is
overcome, and which attains the
plastic [beelding]by the balanced
relationshipsof position and measurement of color."
49. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, 18 September 1921, A. 393, Fondation
Custodia.
50. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, undated,
A. 402, Fondation Custodia. (This
letter must have been written a very
short while before the publication
of the second part of "De Realiseering" and after its composition; thus
very probablyin May 1922.) The
expression"Een vrij benaderend
beeld," which I translatedas "a
close enough reflection,"could also
be translatedas "an approximate
enough image." Neoplasticism is for
Mondrian a general principle covering all human activities:his own
painting is "on the way," but he
does not pretend to have arrivedat
the "absolute"manifestationof neoplastic principles in painting.

51. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, 30 August 1921, A. 391, Fondation Custodia. A letter to van Doesburg,
dated 28 December 1921, gives another account of this episode. Mondrian first mentions Oud's lecture,
"which he sent me this summer":
"At first I did not answer him, and
then when he wrote me later in the
fall I wrote him franklythat I
understandthat maybe he does
not himself accept the N.P.
wholeheartedlyas 'the thing' (in
everything)[als 'het' (in alles)], but
that he could have mentioned us as
an example (my brochure, for example, where I say quite a bit about
architecture).We then had an exchange of correspondence, and I
saw that he is sincerely convinced
of the high importance of the N.P.
but cannot apply it in practice.
It is of course not a surprise,coming from the chief architect of Rotterdam!And so I wrote him that it
is clear to me that to remain pure,
architecturemust be divided in two
(art - completely - and non-art).
That the non-art could in no way
representthe N.P. He did not understandthat either, I assure you,
which is why I began my article. I
told him it was better that I work at
it and send it to him" (Van Doesburg Archive).
52. Kazimir Malevich, manuscript
cited by Eugen Kovtun in "Die Entstehung des Suprematismus,"Von
der Fliche zum Raum, exhibition
catalogue (Cologne: Gallery Gmurzynska, 1974), p. 46. The opposition between architecture-as-artand
architecture-as-constructioncan be
traced back to the origins of modern
architecture, and is constituent of
it. One can find it, for example, in
Boullke's Essai sur l'art, written before 1793 and published posthumously in 1953. Its first paragraph,
typically modernist in its quest for
an essence, reads:"What is archi-

tecture?Should I define it like Vitruvius as the art of building? No,

there is in this definition a crude
error.Vitruvius mistakesthe effect
for the cause" (Etienne-Louis BoullCe, Essai sur l'art, ed. Jean Marie
Perouse de Montclos [Paris:Hermann, 1968], p. 49).
53. This is according to Mondrian's
citation of Oud's response in his
own letter of 18 September 1921,
A. 393.
54. Ibid.
55. "Bij Piet Mondrian,"Nieuwe
RotterdamscheCourant, 23 March
1922.

57. Oud's celebrated confession,

"Jaund Nein," would provokethe
anger of van Doesburg, but Mondrian very probablyhad no knowledge of it. "Jaund Nein" was
published in Paul Westheim and
Carl Einstein, Europa-Almanach
(Postdam:KiepenheuerVerlag,
1925). See Theo van Doesburg,
"Het fiasco van Holland op de exposite te Parijs in 1925," De Stijl 6,
nos. 10-11 (1925).
58. Undated letter to Oud, A. 402.
59. Letter to J. J. P. Oud, 13 July
1922, A. 403, Fondation Custodia.
60. Ibid.
61. Theo van Doesburg, "Van de
esthetiek naar het materiaal,"
BouwkundigWeekblad43, no. 38
(23 September 1922): 372-75 (dated
July 1922, Weimar). This text was
then published in German in De
Stijl 6, no. 1 (March 1923): 10-14.

56. Letter of 4 April 1922, A. 400,

Fondation Custodia. As is well
known, Oud never signed any of
the collective manifestoes of De
Stijl, fearing that his position as
chief architect of Rotterdam(from
62. Letterto Oud, 1 August 1922,
January 1918 on) might suffer from
his
on
commitment
any public
part A. 404.
to the position of the avant-garde.
63. This is the only letter from
In his own uncompromising way,
Oud to Mondrian for which there
Mondrian could not but despise
remains a draft(undated but datable
such a lack of public commitment
1922, A. 372, Fondation Custodia).
as sheer cowardice. In a letter to
64. Letter to J. J. P. Oud, undated
van Doesburg that parallelsthe letbut datable 1922, A. 406, Fondater quoted above, he states that he
tion Custodia.
could not have mentioned the ar65. Letter to J. J. P. Oud, 5 May
chitect in the interview as Oud
never publicly advocatedhis support 1922, A. 401, Fondation Custodia.
for De Stijl and as he did not know 66.
Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
on which side Oud wanted to be
pt. 1, p. 44; The New Art, p. 168.
seen (4 April 1922). On one occa67. Ibid., pt. 1, p. 47; The New
sion, however, Mondrian tried to
Art, p. 169.
make excuses for Oud's lack of
commitment: "AboutOud, you
68. Ibid., pt. 2, p. 66; The New
must take into considerationthat
Art, p. 170.
his position [as Rotterdam'schief
69. A reproachthat Mondrian had
architect]constrains him, that the
made to Oud in the undated letter
truth graduallymakes its way
cited above, n. 50.
through his mind and, above all,
70. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
that, except us, he is the only one
who sees purely"(letter of 6 Octopt. 2, p. 67; The New Art, p. 170.
It is interestingthat Mallet-Stevens
ber 1920). Both letters are in the
Van Doesburg Archive.
exhibited, as early as 1922, full-

127

assemblage 4

scale models at the Salon d'Automne, which Mondrian had perhaps seen. For his part, Mies van
der Rohe had built a full-scale
model in wood and paper of his
project of 1912 for a house for Madame Kr6ller-Mtillerso that she
could better judge the effect. Finally, it is worth noting that Mondrian's practical ideas on the
materialsto be used for models
would be adopted by van Doesburg
and van Eesteren in their 1923
projectsfor the Rosenbergexhibition at the Gallerie de "L'Effort
Moderne." On this, see Bois and
Troy, "De Stijl et l'architecture'i
Paris,"p. 31.
71. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 70; The New Art, p. 172.
72. Ibid.
73. Letter to Oud, 13 July 1922,
A. 403. When he sent the manuscript of "De Realiseering"to van
Doesburg, Mondrian wrote, "Here
is the text. Oud would say that the
beginning is not directly practical.
And the end will not satisfyhim either. Yet I think that everythingis
solved. This point about constructive purity is above all an objection
coming from Oud (in his correspondence with me). I think it is
solved. He makes this objection because he does not have in himself
the N.P. idea, it seems to me. Because 'constructivepurity' is an old
concept. Or am I wrong? I know
almost with certaintythat you agree
with me on that matter. Quickly
send me a note to tell me if that is
so. It seems to me I said everything.
It cost me a lot more effort than it
seems: you must not say that for
weeks I did nothing else but that."
(n.d., Van Doesburg Archive). At
this point van Doesburg had probably not yet elaboratedhis antianatomical position, which appeared for the first time in "Van het
esthetiek naar het material";and

Mondrian certainly played a role in

the evolution of his ideas on architecture. Indeed the texts that van
Doesburg published in 1921 prior
to this discussion with the painter
are, first, a long attackon Berlage,
which used the functionalist argument of Le Corbusier(quoted at
length) as a weapon to stigmatize
the "individualism"and "symbolism" of the old architect("De Taak
van der nieuwe architectuur")and,
second, an appraisalof Le Corbusier's "mechanical"position, which
was used to undermine the romantic and Arts-and-Craftrevivalset
forth by the Bauhaus ("De Beteekenis der mechanische voor de architectuur en de andere vakken").
In both cases, van Doesburg was
still far from attackingfunctionalism
or "anatomism":Mondrian'sthesis
(that by privilegingthe functional
anatomy of a building one loses the
possibilityof achieving in architecture a neutralizationof all the parts
in a nonhierarchicalwhole - that
is, an abstractarchitecture)would
make its way into van Doesburg's
mind in 1922, when he would be
busy sabotagingthe Bauhaus at
Weimar.
74. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 69; The New Art, p. 171.
75. Piet Mondrian, "L'Artpurement abstrait,"published in Vouloir
19 (March 1926): n.p., under the
title (providedby F61ixDel Marle)
of "Art:Puret6 + Abstraction."I
quote from the original manuscript
(the text published in Vouloirwas
modified), transformingslightly the
translationof this manuscriptprovided in The New Art, p. 201.
76. Letterto Alfred Roth, 28 June
1933; quoted in Roth, Begegnung
mit Pionieren, p. 176.
77. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 69; The New Art, p. 171.
Mondrian would use this sentence

again in "L'Architecturefuture n0oplasticienne,"p. 13; this text in

L'Architecturevivante is, in general, a summaryadaptedfrom "De
Realiseering."
78. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 69; The New Art, p. 171.
79. Mondrian seems to have regardedBerlage highly. When van
Doesburg was writing"De Taak der
nieuwe architectuur,"Mondrian
wrote him, "Do you really think it
is necessaryto attackBerlage?Is he
really the representativeof our enemies? I always considered him as
the only architect, artist, personality, etc. - but old-fashioned. Well,
you do not have to reply here because on that, we must talk directly"(letter of 15 September
1920, Van Doesburg Archive).
80. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 68; The New Art, p. 171.
81. See the letter of van Doesburg
to Walter Dexel, 21 October 1925,
in HommageacWalterDexel Beitriigezum 90 Geburtstagdes
Kiinstlers(Starnberg:Josef Keller
Verlag, 1980), pp. 84-85.
82. Piet Mondrian, "Moet de
schilderkunstminder waardigezijn
aan de bouwkunst?"De Stijl 6, no.
5 (1923): 64; trans. in The New Art,
p. 174.
83. Piet Mondrian, "Les Arts de la
beaut6 et notre ambiance tangible,"
Manometre6 (Lyons, August 1924):
107; trans. in The New Art, p. 185.
Although published in 1924, the
text was written in 1923.
84. Piet Mondrian, "Le Home la Rue - la Cite," Vouloir 25
(1927): n.p. In this text, for the first
time, Mondrian took a public position against the "elementarism"of
van Doesburg.
85. Piet Mondrian, "A New Real-

128

ism" (April 1943);trans. in The

New Art, p. 347.
86. Piet Mondrian, "PurePlastic
Art"(March 1942);trans. in The
New Art, p. 343.
87. Mondrian refusedthis term for
his own art, arguing that he eliminated the "destructive"aspect of
neoplasticism;but the important
thing here is not a question of terminology: Mondrian shares with
Malevitch, El Lissitzky,and all the
members of the Russian avantgarde, this teleological vision of the
future disappearanceof art as a separate activity.
88. See Mondrian, "De Nieuwe
Beelding in de schilderkunst,"pt. 5,
De Stijl 1, no. 5 (March 1918): 51,
and pt. 6, De Stijl 1, no. 7 (May
1918): 76 n. 5; trans. in The New
Art, pp. 41-42, 46 n. z.
89. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 1, p. 43; The New Art, p. 168.
90. Mondrian, "Het bepaalde en
het onbepaalde,"p. 16; The New
Art, p. 71.
91. Mondrian, "De Nieuwe Beelding in de schilderkunst,"pt. 6, p.
76 n. 2; The New Art, p. 44 n.w.
92. Mondrian, "Natuurlijkeen abstracterealiteit";The New Art, p.
86.
93. Mondrian, Le Neo-plasticisme,
p. 1; The New Art, p. 134.
94. Undated letter to Oud, A. 406.
95. This is what Mondrian stated
to a journalistduring an interview.
"Bij Piet Mondrian,"De Telegraaf,
12 September 1926.
96. Charmion von Wiegand,
"Mondrian,"p. 60. Another amusing example: Mondrian'sstudio is
describedby many visitorsas a haven of silence, in line with Mondrian's insistence, during the "classical
period"of neoplasticism, that his art

Bois

strive towardabsolute repose. Yet

silence needs noise to be "determined," as he would have said,
since within the neoplastic dialectical system everythingis "determined" by its contrary.Shortly after
having moved to his new studio, located on the rue du Depart, i.e.,
right on the old Montparnassestation, Mondrian wrote to van Doesburg:"You write about the noise of
the trains:yes, it is sometimes irksome, but it is very beautiful when
I work. It is only when I don't
work, when I want to sleep for example, that it is horrendous. At
least with the window open. . . . At
any rate this noise is better than the
screaming of children, for example,
or the talking of the neighbors in
the house, as in my previous studio" (undated, Van Doesburg Archive). It is interestingto note that
Mondrian'sfascination for the noise
of the metropolis while at work has
a precedent, recounted by Walter
Benjamin in his book on Baudelaire: that of Charles Dickens missing the noises of the streetsof
London while he was traveling, and
feeling incapable of workingwithout them (WalterBenjamin,
Charles Baudelaire:A Lyric Poet in
the Era of High Capitalism, trans.
HarryZohn [London: New Left
Books, 1973], p. 49).
97. Mondrian, "De Nieuwe Beelding in de schilderkunst,"pt. 3, De
Stijl 1, no. 3 (1918): 31; The New
Art, p. 37.
98. Mondrian, "Le Home - la
Rue - la Cite," n.p.; The New
Art, p. 208.
99. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 66; The New Art, p. 170.
100. Letter to Oud 18 September
1921, A. 393.
101. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 2, p. 66; The New Art, p. 170.
102. Nancy Troy, The De Stijl En-

vironment, passim. See also idem,

"Mondrian'sDesigns for the Salon
de Madame B . .. in Dresden,"
Art Bulletin (December 1980): 64047, and "Piet Mondrian Atelier,"
Arts Magazine (December 1978):
82-87.
103. See Mondrian, "Natuurlijke
en abstracterealiteit,"De Still 3,
no. 9 (July 1920): 75; The New Art,
p. 119.
104. Ibid., De Stijl 3, no. 6 (April
1920): 55; The New Art, p. 110.
105. See Umberto Boccioni,
"Manifestetechnique de la sculpture futuriste,"(1912) in Giovanni
Lista, Futurisme (Lausanne:L'Age
d'Homme, 1973); for Strzeminski
and Kobro, see "Lacomposition de
I'espace- Les calculs des rythmes
spatio-temporels,"in Wladislaw
Strzeminskiand KatarzynaKobro,
L'espaceuniste (Lausanne:L'Age
d'Homme, 1977). See also my essay
on their writings, "Strzeminskiet
Kobro:En quete de la motivation,"
Critique 440-41 (January-February
1984): 70-94. Mondrian, for his
part, admitted that for him traditional sculpture and architecturealready had the role of "determining"
space "to some extent," and that he
was in fact concerned to "intensify"
the solutions alreadyfound in those
arts when they "reducedthe caprice
of the natural"(Le Ngo-plasticisme,
p. 7; The New Art, p. 140).
106. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"
pt. 1, p. 44; The New Art, p. 168.
107. Ibid., pt. 2, p. 69; The New
Art, p. 171. The editors of The
New Art found in Mondrian'spapers this "untitledtearsheetfrom an
unidentified French publication,
c. 1930s," where he expresseshis
views on fashion: "Fashion is not
only the faithful mirrorof a period,
it is one of the most direct plastic
expressionsof human culture. In
fashion, however, just as in free art,

we see a tendency to return to natural appearances.Nothing is more

unhuman than regression.In order
not to fall back merely into a new
expressionof the past, it is therefore
most importantfor fashion to create
an appearanceexpressing'man-nature' in equivalence . . . to oppose
the undulating lines and soft forms
of the body with tautened lines and
unified planes so as to create more
equilibratedrelationships"(The New
Art, p. 226).
108. Mondrian, Le Neo-plasticisme, pp. 4-5; The New Art, p.
138.
109. Mondrian complained of this
in a letter to Alfred Roth, 28 June
1933; cited in Roth, Begegnung mit
Pionieren, p. 176.
110. Letter to van Doesburg of
1922; cited by H. L. C. Jaff6, De
Stijl: The Dutch Contribution to
Modern Art, 2d ed. (Cambridge:
HarvardUniversityPress, 1986),
p. 162.
111. Mondrian, "Natuurlijkeen
abstracterealiteit,"De Still 3, no. 6
(April 1920): 55; The New Art,
pp. 109-10.
112. Mondrian, "Het bepaalde en
het onbepaalde,"p. 19 n. 9; The
New Art, p. 72 n.u. It should be
noted how Mondrian distances
himself here from van der Leck, or
better, how he subvertshis propositions.
113. Ibid.
114. Mondrian, "Natuurlijkeen
abstracterealiteit,"De Stijl 3, no. 7
(May 1920): 59; The New Art, p.
113. The "three-dimensional unity"
that Mondrian speaksof is perhaps
a lapsus (in the context one would
have expected a "two-dimensional
unity"). Whateverthe case, De Stijl
did not publish an erratum, and the
manuscriptof this text is not for the
moment accessible. It should be

129

notedthatthis is the only text

whereMondrian(to my knowledge)
mentionsthe "fourthdimension"
dearto van Doesburg.The passage
in questionreads:". . . as soonas
- then
we beginto see universally
we no longerseefromone pointof
view.It is indeeda happyphenomenon thatthe mostrecentpainting
revealsan increasingly
conscious
searchfor a pureand many-sided
of things,becauseit
representation
the new and moreconexpresses
sciousspiritof our time, which
aspiresto a moredeterminate
expressionof the universal.This aspirationhasbeen ascribedto our
awareness
stronger
of thefourthdimension,a conceptionthatactually
doescome to the forein recentart
as partialor completedestruction
of
three-dimensional
naturalisticexpressionand reconstruction
of a new
lesslimitedin its
plasticexpression,
vision"(Ibid.,p. 99, Mondrian's
tone is very
emphasis).Mondrian's
reserved,to saythe least,withregardto the "fourthdimension."In a
letterto van Doesburgrelatedto
thispassage,he wrote,"AgainI did
not saymuch aboutthe fourthdimension!But one getsso quickly
into an occultterrain"
(14 September 1919).Fromthe beginningof
theircorrespondence,
van Doesburg
triedto raisein Mondrianan interest forthe "fourthdimension,"and
receivedwhatamountsto a polite
refusalto takethis questioninto
consideration.
On one occasion,it
seemsthatMondrianhadbriefly
insisacquiescedto van Doesburg's
tenceandhadaddedsomethingon
the topicin one of the installments
of "De NieuweBeeldingin de
but he musthavefischilderkunst";
nallyrejectedthe idea, as nothing
appearsin the publishedversion.
"Onthe fourthdimension,I was
too brief.Now its seemsto me better. I do not sayanythingof the
otherdimensions:it will never

make a fundamental difference"

(undated letter, c. January 1918,
Van Doesburg Archive). Mondrian's resistanceto the notion of the
"fourthdimension," among the
most celebrated humdrum of his
epoch, is quite significant. It can
indeed be linked to his refusal of
time as an element to be taken into
account in painting (or, as we will
see, in architecture);but, above all,
it should cast some doubt on the
numerous attemptsto reduce neoplasticism to a pictorial illustration
of esoteric doctrines such as theosophy. Mondrian's interest in theosophy was in truth very strong at the
time of his passageto abstraction
(1915-17). Nevertheless, it diminished significantly at the very beginning of the 1920s, as is witnessed in
both his published writings, where
the topic ceased to be mentioned,
and in his correspondence;where it
is then only alluded to, if at all, in
a negative fashion. Furthermore, it
remains to be proven that the influence of Shoenmaekers, whose name
is brandishedby anyone taking an
occultist reading of Mondrian as the
major approach, concerns anything
beyond some terminologic borrowings. At any rate, Mondrian'slack
of interest in the "fourthdimension" shows that anything that
could not help consolidate the theoretical apparatusthat he was elaborating for his painting (that is,
anything that could not enter the
dialectical system of oppositions on
which the whole of his enterprise
rested)remained utterly insignificant to him. This attitude contrasts
severely with that of the eclecticism
of van Doesburg, one of the great
European champions of the "fourth
dimension" in the 1920s (see Linda
Dalrymple Henderson, The Fourth
Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art [Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1983],
pp. 321-34).

115. Mondrian, "De Realiseering,"

pt. 2, p. 68; The New Art, p. 171.
116. Ibid.
117. Mondrian, "L'Architecturefuture n6o-plasticienne,"p. 13; The
New Art, p. 197.
118. It is true that Mondrian immediately rectified his position:
"Everythingmoves in the bar and at
the same time is at rest.""De Jazz
en de Neoplastiek,"Internationale
Revue 110 1, no. 12 (1927); trans.
in The New Art,
p. 222.
119. Mondrian, "A New Realism,"
p. 350.
120. Letter of 12 September 1921,
cited by Troy, The De Stijl Environment, p. 70. The question of
time would, indeed, be the first
conscious disagreementbetween
Mondrian and van Doesburg (until
this question occurred, Mondrian
had always been quick to assume
that differencesof position between
them were only mattersof terminology, and was even tempted to do
so on this occasion). In a letter
dated 25 May 1922 and commenting upon van Doesburg'sfamous
lecture "Der Wille zum Stijl"(delivered in Iena, Weimar, and Berlin
and published in De Stijl 5, nos. 2
and 3 (1922): 23-41), Mondrian
wrote:"I do not agree at all with
the positioning in time of architecture, because the new principle
does away with time . .. because I
want, on the contrary,to eliminate
time in the contemplation also of
arch.";quoted and discussed in
Hoek, "Piet Mondrian,"p. 72.
Mondrian'srejection of time in architecture is a function of his rejection of time in painting. As such, it
belongs to a long traditionthat extends back to Lessing and, via a
subdued neo-Kantism, would be essential to pictorial modernism as
reinterpretedby Clement Greenberg

(but alreadyformulatedin an exemplary way by Wladislaw Strzeminski

in his 1927 text "Unism in Painting"). Mondrian'sadherence to the
system of H/V, as van Doesburg
would say, was entirely governedby
his rejection of time, and his refusal
of elementarismwould be based on
the same ground:an oblique line,
being dynamic, conveys a sense of
time that is not immanent to the
space of painting;it glides above the
surface and makes the background
recede. But if, as far as painting is
concerned, Mondrian'sposition is
in consonance with his whole system, it does not make much sense
for architecture- although the interest of architectsin time (and in
the perception one can have of
buildings while moving in it) was,
and still is, ratherthe exception
than the rule.

Yale University.I thank Herbert

Henkels for drawingmy attention to
it.

121. Letterof El Lissitzkyto Sophie Kiippers,2 March 1926; cited

in Sophie Kiippers-Lissitzky,
El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1968), p. 74.
122. As reportedby J. Bakemain
"Rietveld,"Forum 4 (Amsterdam,
1960-61): n.p.

11. Collection StedelijkVan Abbemuseum.

123. On this whole episode, see

Bois and Troy, "De Stijl et I'architecture a Paris,"pp. 64-70.
124. In "De expositie te ParijsPro en Contra het Hollandsche
Paviljoen- Een enquete," Het
Vaderland, 4 August 1925.
125. Letterto J. J. P. Oud, undated but datable September 1925,
A. 418, Fondation Custodia.
126. Mondrian'stext is "De Huif
naar den Wind," De Stijl 6, nos.
6-7 (1924): 88; trans. in The New
Art, p. 181.
127. This letter, posted from Doordrecht is conserved in the archives
of HarryHoltzman at the Beinecke
Rare Book and ManuscriptLibrary,

130

Figure Credits
1. Courtesy of The Beinecke Rare
Book and ManuscriptLibrary,Yale
University.
2. From Alfred Barr,Cubism and
AbstractArt (New York:Museum
of Modern Art, 1936).
3, 5, 7, 17. Courtesy of the author.
4. NederlandsDocumentatiecentrum voor de Bouwkunst,Amsterdam.
6. From De Stijl 6, nos. 6-7
(1924).
8-10. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden. Photographscourtesy
of Nancy Troy.

12-14. Documentation Archive,

Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.
15. Fondation Custodia, Institut
N6erlandais, Paris.
16. From De Stijl 6, nos. 10-11

(1925).